The Great Escape
by Varmint
Summary: They had told Naruto to not touch the ominously glowing sealed scroll they had found deep in the catacombs of the abandoned town that was nothing more than ruins. They had told the blonde but had the blonde listened? No. Of course not. This is Naruto we're talking about.
1. Chapter 1

Summary: They had told Naruto to not touch the ominously glowing sealed scroll they had found deep in the catacombs of the abandoned town that was nothing more than ruins. They had told the blonde but had the blonde listened? No. Of course not. This is Naruto we're talking about.

Quick A/N: I asked and you answered! Here is my first ever My Hero Academia story, which is also a crossover with my insane children from Naruto. This'll be funny at first but will hit its moments of severity because that's just how I write.

Enjoy~

~..~..~

_Chapter 1_

When Kiba woke up, the first thing he noticed was the clear lack of _darkness_ surrounding him.

The second thing he noticed was the rather bright setting that now surrounded him. A surrounding, which, when compared to the darkness he had been expecting, certainly struck him as odd.

And the third thing he noticed was the plump woman with the wide eyes staring down at him with nothing short of fear rolling off of her in waves.

_Shit_.

~/~

"Mom? Are you still there?" Izuku questioned with a soft chuckle, more than aware that his mother was prone to choking up on her own emotions when he called from his dorm.

As he waited for her to answer, the young teen tapped his foot against the floor and swiveled his chair from one side to another. He had homework to finish, but his mother only asked for an hour of his time once a week- he could wait for her to pull herself together so they could finish their conversation on what had happened recently in school.

"Ah, come on, mom. There's no need to-"

_"Ah! Get out! Get out!"_

"Mom?" He bolted up on his chair as soon as he heard her shouts, beginning to freak out as she continued to scream from the other line. "Mom! What's going on?"

_"Intruder! There's some criminal in the apartment!"_

"Don't hang up, mom. I'm going to call the police!"

Izuki panicked. There was no other way to describe why he ran out of his room and burst into Tokoyami's room without even thinking about possible consequences.

His fellow student had been laying on his bed, seemingly sleeping, but he sat upright when Izuku burst in. He was glaring and, normally, Izuku would have promptly apologized for having been so rude. But instead, the green haired teen shouted, "Someone broke into my apartment and my mom's alone! I need you to call the police!"

Tokoyami blinked for a moment but in a flash was on the other side of the room, picking up his phone to begin the call. In the mean time, Izuku jogged in place as his heart beat so quickly he felt it was about to break free of his chest.

"Mom! Get out!"

_"Why do you want to steal from me?"_ He heard his mother shouting, then, oddly enough, began to hear some surprised shouts that were certainly not his mother's own.

_"Ow! Stop that, lady! Akamaru- Akamaru? Where's Akamaru! What did you do to my best friend, lady?"_

He was so _helpless_...

Everything seemed to freeze for a moment as he waited for his mother to answer... Then he heard what sounded like a harsh thud against the ground.

_No!_

"Don't you hurt her! Don't hurt my mother!"

She wasn't speaking anymore.

Just then, Tokoyami asked him for his direction so the police could hurry to help.

~/~

This... This was not the cave they had been sent to investigate.

Kiba blinked at the unconscious woman on the floor, very much confused by what had just happened.

First of all, Akamaru was nowhere to be found and this woman was the only person that could tell her what had happened to his partner. But she had been so busy throwing random objects at him that she had given him _nothing_. Then, after he had ducked behind a couch and escaped from her line of fire, he had heard the dull thud of a body hitting the ground. When he had chanced a look up, it had been to find her on the ground- completely knocked out.

He had no idea what was going on... But he was pretty sure he could blame Naruto for the mess he currently found himself within.

With a sigh, Kiba scanned over his surroundings to try and make some sense of them. But... Even though the place _looked_ like a regular apartment... There were some things he certainly didn't recognize.

Like the loud object that lay beside the unconscious woman, which was emitting the kind of noise that sounded like another human being talking. Or the square thing propped up on the table directly in front of the couch, which was blaring with bright lights and odd images passing by at lightning speed.

With a scoff of disbelief, Kiba made his way towards the woman. He crouched beside her, checked her pulse, and was satisfied to know that she hadn't suddenly keeled over and died. She had just fainted. That was a good thing- he didn't want to add 'killer of old ladies' to his already not-that-stellar name.

Once that was done, he turned to the white object on the ground. It was curved, with two circular ends attached to said curved body, with what looked like a small stick jutting out from one end. He frowned at it, then poked it. Seeing how his finger suffered no damage, he decided to pick it up. When he had it within his hand, he was able to see that the circles were white as well, but had a multitude of little holes in the very center.

The lady had been holding it to her ear...

_"The police are on their way, mom! Don't worry! Just hang in there! Everything will be fine and that criminal will be arrested!"_

Criminal?

"Hey! I ain't the one that started assaulting someone!" Kiba growled at the disembodied voice, "Your mom's a nut."

There was silence for a beat.

Then, _"What did you do to my mother? Why are you answering the phone? Why did you break into our home?"_

Break into?

"I broke in nowhere. I just woke up here." Kiba scratched at the back of his head with his left hand, then asked, "Why did your mom faint? Is that something normal for her?"

_"You made her faint?!"_

Kiba wasn't able to stop himself from throwing the loud object away from his ear when the male-sounding harpy suddenly screeched into his ear! The object flew across the room and crashed against one of the walls, immediately ceasing the horrid noise that it had been creating.

Now in silence, Kiba took a moment to catch his breath and try to formulate some kind of plan for what he would do.

That moment of calm ceased when he heard another sharp noise from outside where he was that didn't sound good at all. He didn't know what that noise was, but it sounded a lot like a siren that signaled coming trouble. And, quite frankly, he didn't want to know what kind of trouble that could have been.

Once he found the nearest window, Kiba made his way towards it to escape. But before he left the place for good, he took one last look at the woman... And felt pretty bad.

"You're soft, Inuzuka..." He muttered to himself as he went back to the couch, grabbed one of the gaudy, bright yellow, cushions, and then placed it beneath the unconscious woman's head.

With that done, Kiba clambered out of the window and began to climb up the building to get a good gauge of his new surroundings.

* * *

"Whoa! Are you okay?"

Hinata groaned at the pain sprouting from her head, all the while she kept her eyes closed shut to try and stamp down on the nauseous feeling that had bubbled up in her stomach. Her throat was uncomfortably tight and she wanted nothing more than to vomit to try and see if that would calm her rolling stomach. But she didn't want to have such a disgusting taste in her mouth at the moment, so she forced herself to breathe in and _calm down_.

She wasn't completely sure who had spoken to her, but she recognized a female voice that did _not_ belong to Tenten.

For a moment, the Hyuga tried to remember just what had happened to have left her feeling so sick.

But then there was a hand on her shoulder, soft and light, and she cracked one eye open to find a brown haired girl looking at her through wide, worried brown eyes.

"You hit your head pretty hard against my bed's edge. Are you alright?" Her voice was slightly muffled, kind of far away, even though Hinata could see that she was standing right in front of her.

That was the first indicator as to the hit she had received having been a bit harsher than she would have liked.

"I don't see any blood... But it looked like a _really_ bad hit."

Hinata closed her only open eye, breathed in to steady herself, and opened her mouth to answer.

At that precise moment, someone burst in through a door, causing it to crash against something which, in turn, shot a bolt of pain straight through Hinata's brain.

"We are not supposed to have visitors, Uraraka! Please tell me you have a good excuse for breaking the rules U.A. set for us!"

Hinata winced as the loud words pummeled her head, worsening the pressure that was slowly building up into a headache. She wasn't sure, but she thought that she may have even whined a little.

"And you're supposed to be asleep after curfew, Iida. But seeing how we're both breaking rules, why don't you help me out here? She just appeared out of nowhere and bumped her head real hard... Maybe she's got some sort of teleportation quirk and calculated wrong or something..."

Hinata tried to remain conscious. She really did.

But her eyes were extremely heavy.

And there was darkness surrounding the edges of her vision... It was like her body was _begging_ her to fall asleep...

"I've never seen this person around..."

She slipped into darkness without catching the ending of the conversation.

* * *

Naruto was going to pay _dearly_ when Shikamaru saw him again.

They had specifically told him, _countless times_, to _not_ touch the artifact until they were _sure_ that there wasn't any chakra affecting it anymore. They had explained the danger of the situation on a handful of occasions. And he had even _promised_ that he understood why he wasn't able to touch the artifact.

Granted, Hinata had said she _understood_ that the flow of chakra into the artifact had ceased... Still, Shikamaru had _never_ given Naruto permission to touch the artifact. Out of all of them, the _team leader_ was supposed to have been the one to remove it from its pedestal once Hinata had given the all clear.

But Naruto had been the one to touch the artifact after Hinata had said she _thought the chakra flow had been stopped_\- she hadn't even been a hundred percent sure!

Shikamaru was not sure if Hinata was the one to blame, for having been incorrect in assuming that the chakra flow had been terminated, or if it was Naruto they should hold accountable. Because if Hinata _had_ been correct and the chakra had been stopped, then it wouldn't be a stretch to assume that Naruto's inhuman chakra reserves had somehow interfered and started the artifact up again, even after Hinata had completed her task successfully.

All he knew with one hundred percent certainty was that his whole team had been sent into a dark hole that none had managed to escape _and_ he now found himself in front of a rather interesting looking boy. He had a red marking (a birthmark or burn mark, probably) over one eye, and hair that was white in one half and red on the other. He looked to be dressed in a set of simple pajamas.

The boy blinked at him, face betraying no emotions.

"... Is that a shogi board?"

The boy continued to stare at him for a couple of seconds before he nodded quietly.

Shikamaru placed his hands on his hips, hung his head, and thought for a moment.

He had no idea where he was, where his team could be, if there had been any disastrous consequences born from Naruto having touched the artifact, or who the person before him was.

Out of all his questions, the easiest one to get an answer to would be the last one.

"Do you play?"

Once again, a mute nod.

"Want to play a game?"

One final nod.

Shikamaru sighed and smiled softly.

"My name's Nara Shikamaru."

"Todoroki Shouto."

~/~

He was fairly certain that he was not supposed to be playing a board game with a person that had appeared within his room out of thin air. Rather, he was pretty sure that he was supposed to have run straight to Aizawa-sensei and tell him to set off an alarm- there was an intruder within U.A. grounds.

But this Nara Shikamaru... Well, he seemed rather harmless. Physically, he had no tell-tale signs of obvious quirks. And his body was built in a lithe-muscle sort of way, the kind one would expect from a swimmer. Possibly, he could have some skill in fighting. But Todoroki was very sure of his own skills and their superiority in countless situations.

Although... Fighting as he normally would might end up with some damage to his room. And he rather liked his dorm. He didn't want to accidentally destroy it if there was no need for it.

They had been playing in complete silence for a couple of seconds when Todoroki frowned at the board before him.

"You've won."

The stranger hummed in what sounded like surprise, "So you're able to see that I'm only a handful of moves away from winning?"

The scarred teenager nodded in return, then looked him square in the eyes. "Rematch?"

Nara stared at him for a couple of seconds... Then smirked subtly and nodded.

* * *

"As soon as I get my hands on that idiotic little blonde piece of shit I'm gonna make him regret ever having returned to Konoha!"

As she screamed, Tenten made a point of slapping her hands against her grass stained clothes to try and clean them up.

She couldn't believe Naruto had done that! Hadn't Shikamaru warned him enough times to _not_ touch the artifact until they were _completely sure_ that it wasn't about to suddenly activate on them if it was touched? Because Tenten was pretty sure that Shikamaru had told Naruto this! She was pretty freaking sure about this, actually!

With a final huff, Tenten forced herself onto her feet and began to scan the area around her.

It was as she did this that she noticed that she was being watched by a pink haired girl- around her age, actually, from how youthful yet tall and... well... _developed_ she looked.

She was being stared at.

Tenten smiled softly and waved over at her, "Uh... Hey... Sorry about all of that yelling."

The female was wearing a tight fitting black shirt, some loose green pants, a pair of rather clunky looking boots, and a rather interesting looking pair of goggles over her eyes. On the lenses, there was a sort of cross, and Tenten couldn't help but think that it seemed rather odd to have such a design that could impair the goggles' usefulness.

"No problem." The girl remarked with a final blink, then smiled broadly, "That was quite an interesting light show you produced! Do you have babies of your own? Or was that simply a part of your quirk?"

The girl was speaking in tongues... No, she wasn't, but Tenten didn't really understand just what she wanted to know because of some key words in her questions that made absolutely no sense to her.

Babies? Quirk? Well... Some people did say she was one of the least quirky people around... But she didn't really think that this mattered much at all, seeing how those people were idiots.

"I do _not_ have any kids." Tenten shook her head, then her eyes widened when she noticed something. "Do I even have my weapons?!"

Once again, she paid no attention to the pink haired girl before her. Instead, she began to pat at her pouches and pockets, making sure that all of her scrolls were in their proper place and she was _not_ currently vulnerable in front of a possible enemy.

After a couple of seconds of checking, Tenten breathed out in relief.

Then she looked around and noticed that the only people in the vast park were her and the pink haired girl. There was no one else around them. There wasn't even a single trace of her teammates.

"Everything alright over there?" The girl asked as she took a couple of steps towards Tenten.

The brown haired teen nodded, and sighed, "Yeah. I just... Have _no_ idea where I am."

"Oh, I can answer that easy. You're in one of U.A.'s many recreational areas. This is a small park at the edges of the free range grounds where I can blow things up without accidentally interrupting anybody's sleep."

_Blow things up?_

Tenten couldn't help but smirk softly... She kind of liked this chick.

* * *

He woke up to see one of the scariest faces he had ever seen in his life.

Thin, gaunt, with a horrifying mouth that spanned from one side of his face to the other lay below lifeless, hollowed out blue eyes.

He screamed out in shock and fear before he could make heads or tails of the terrifying creature before him.

The sunken, beady eyes seemed to widen in return. But Naruto didn't contemplate about what that could mean. Instead he forced his body to slide back on the surface he was on, away from the horrifying monster before him.

In less than five seconds, he had smashed his head against a sturdy object and pain sprouted up from the very center of his skull. He shouted out and ceased in his attempt at a retreat, instead throwing his hands up to clutch at the spot he had hit.

"You really should be more careful, kid."

The voice Naruto heard sounded tired and slightly exasperated, kind of like Pervy-Sage got whenever he wasn't particularly happy with one of Naruto's genius plans.

"Let me take a look. I don't think it's a serious bump, but, still."

Frail hands pulled his own away from his newest injury and Naruto hissed when the bump was exacerbated by a poke. But he closed his eyes and allowed the frail hands to poke and prod at him until the person was content with what he found.

After a handful of seconds spent in silence, Naruto heard a soft grunt from the person with him. Then the hands weren't touching him anymore; they simply disappeared. And, soon enough, he found the same terrifying face from before appearing in front of his eyes.

Once again, he was not able to stop himself from wincing.

"That's nothing too serious, kid. But we should probably put some ice on it." The man murmured before he straightened up and walked away, leaving the blonde teenager alone.

For a moment, Naruto took the time to contemplate whether the man's voice was disinterested, annoyed, or just... _tired._ But after he had taken the time to do that, the blonde forced himself to remember Shikamaru and try to think of what he might do in a situation like this.

First of all, Shikamaru would not actively aggravate a possible enemy.

… So he had already failed at being Shikamaru. Dammit.

With a shake of his head, Naruto pursed his lips, crossed his arms, and lowered his head to be able to think even deeper.

Second of all, Shikamaru would take a stock of his surroundings and the people with him.

Opening his eyes once again, Naruto took a look around the area he was in, and came to the conclusion that he was in a person's living room. And what he had slammed his head against had been a squared wooden piece of furniture... Uh... A nightstand? Maybe? He wasn't sure of the name, exactly. But he could see that there were some pictures on the top of it.

Okay, he was in someone's house, probably. Now, second phase of step two: where were his teammates?

Once again, he looked over his surroundings... And promptly found no trace of any of the people he had gone on the mission with. The room he was within was now completely devoid of anyone other than himself, seeing how the skeleton freak had also left.

Well... This was bad.

* * *

He had been trying to sleep.

Today had been draining and all Shouji Mezou had truly wanted had been to be able to get a good night's rest before another day began. His classmates were rather tiring with their rambunctious ways and what energy he had left after dealing with them was usually sapped by school activities. Seeing how he was supposed to be active during the day, the only time he truly had to relax anymore was at night.

He tried to make the most of the night and sleep as much as possible.

Tonight was supposed to have been like any other... Until a swirling, _bright_ vortex appeared on the ceiling of his room. It would have reminded him of the one utilized by the villain Kurogiri so long ago... If not for the fact that it had been a blinding blue that had immediately interrupted his attempts at sleep.

When Shouji had opened his eyes, he had found himself faced with what he assumed to be some kind of opening. But before he could truly contemplate what kind of doorway had been opened before him, a large white, _fluffy_, being topped from the vortex. Once it landed on his room's floor, the vortex had swirled for a couple of moments before it closed in on itself and eventually disappeared in less than a handful of seconds.

Shouji had blinked at the spot on his ceiling where the vortex had been.

Then he looked down at the being that had been deposited... And was left stunned when he saw the floppy ears, furry tail, and incredibly pink tongue that were immediate identifiers of a canine.

There was a horse-sized dog unconscious on his floor.

He wasn't Midoriya… He wasn't Bakugo… He wasn't Todoroki... What in the world why was something _weird_ happening to him?

..~..~..

I've got other My Hero Academia stories planned out, so I hope you're as excited to read them as I am to write them! Please review and tell me what you thought about this chapter!


	2. Chapter 2

I didn't expect so much love for this story with just one chapter! But I'm glad you all liked this story enough to follow, favorite, and review! I hope the rest of the story keeps y'all as pleased as the first chapter.

Please, enjoy~

~..~..~

_Chapter 2_

This was not the forest they had found the 'mythical' (good for nothing) cave within. Hell, this wasn't even the Land of Fire. They were nowhere near Konoha.

He was supposed to be seeing endless trees and nothing but the bright light of the moon and the stars. Instead, he was seeing a roaring metropolis with so much light pollution that he could barely find any darkness- even though he knew it was night because of the crescent moon up above. Which, now that he thought about it, seemed almost _brown_... And distinguishably lacking its usual brightness.

This place... it was like nothing he had ever seen before in his life.

The layout of the place _made sense_. The buildings were larger than the ones in Konoha and a bit less spaced out than he would have liked. But that made sense because people needed to live inside of them. This wasn't odd. No, what _was_ odd was the metallic monsters he was seeing zooming down dark streets. Aside from that, there were some large billboards with _moving pictures_ on them...

He wasn't anywhere near Konoha and Kiba was overwhelmed.

The smell of this place was _putrid_.

Not even _Kiri_ had been this bad when he had gone- and that place had one of the worst reputations in the whole world!

The smells in this place were suffocating him. There was smog and grime and horrible, _disgusting_ smells coming from every direction. No matter where he turned, Kiba was bombarded by _foul_ _stench_. There was no fresh air in this place.

Kiba needed to find something, _anything_ fresh. If only to cleanse his poor, burning nose.

His nose was so overwhelmed by all the smells that he couldn't even begin to _think_ of trying to track his teammates' down. Not even _Akamaru's_ well known scent would be able to break through all of this stench...

The sirens were blaring below and Kiba was very sure that he would get into further trouble if he didn't make a quick getaway. So he pushed through the smell that caused tears to well up in his eyes and forced himself to make his way towards the edge of the building he had climbed. Once he was by the edge of the rooftop, he flexed his fingers and prepared himself, then propelled himself past the edge and towards the roof of the closest building.

From building to building, the Inuzuka jumped with enough strength and chakra to clear sizeable gaps but without putting himself in danger of tiring himself too quickly. He did his best to not think about the possibility of dying because of one mistimed jump. He merely allowed himself to try and calculate the probable height between the roofs and the ground- noticed that it was an incredibly long drop- and continued on his way.

He needed to find some clarity.

Once his nose was clear, he would be able to find his friends.

But first, he'd need to break free of this _horrible stench._

* * *

When she woke up, it was to find the kind, smiling face of an elderly woman looking down at her.

"Ah, you're awake. Gave us quite the scare with that nasty hit to the head, you know."

Hinata felt dumb as she stared at the woman. She didn't say anything- her mind was still swimming so much that she couldn't find any words to even begin to formulate.

A light shined in her eyes without a single warning, immediately making the teenager wince and squint her eyes as she turned away from the light and closed her eyes. She heard a pleased hum from her right side, then the scratching of a pencil.

"Reaction time is pretty good for a concussion. Must be recovering much faster than expected- possibly because of a quick-healing quirk. Needs further tests." The elderly woman seemed to mumble to herself as she disappeared from Hinata's view, leaving the young girl rather confused over what had been said.

It was when she was about to ask the person she assumed to be a nurse or doctor what she had meant when someone else spoke up.

"So she's not in any danger?"

This voice... Hinata had heard it before. But _where_?

"It seems she's making a speedy recovery." The older woman answered with what sounded like surprise dusting her tone. "You say that she appeared in your room from the ceiling? And she hit her head against your bedframe?"

"Mm-hmm." Was the female's soft hum, "But I dunno if she was injured from before. I just saw her fall from the ceiling."

There came a melodic hum from the elderly woman's direction, then a the scratching of two objects running against each other.

"You two can go back to your dorm now. This young lady is healing up quite nicely- maybe she'll be ready to answer some of your questions tomorrow morning."

"Thank you very much, Recovery Girl."

There was the shuffling of feet, the squeaking of a door's hinges, then there was silence once again. After a couple of seconds, Hinata was able to hear the dull thud of a door softly closing after being opened. And, finally, she heard a heavy sigh from the direction of the elderly woman's voice.

She sounded... _worried?_ No, that didn't sound right. Not worried- maybe disappointed? _Tired_? But... Why would she sound like this?

"Have a nice nap, child."

The pull of darkness was too strong for Hinata to try and fight it off.

* * *

On the day before Todoroki had met Nara, he had heard Midoriya, Uraraka, and Iida discussing odd events that had occurred to them all within the span of only two days.

Midoriya had explained to his friends how the police were worried about his mother's residence being safe enough for her to inhabit in the next few days because of a mysterious break-in. The person that had invaded his mother's apartment hadn't taken anything and his mother had not been hurt in any way, but she was terrified of being alone; but she refused to have her son come back to stay with her.

Uraraka had then explained how a girl, probably a year older than them, had popped into her room in the middle of the night and hurt herself during the fall. She and Iida had then taken her to Recovery Girl, who had begun to treat her. When they had returned the next morning, they had been told that the girl wasn't available to visitors just yet: and that had been very weird.

Todoroki had listened in on all of this without commenting a single thing, merely attributing all of the weird occurrences to the fact that this was a trio best known for their innate ability pull in chaos without even lifting a finger.

Now that he was faced with Nara, though, a boy that could beat him at shogi without even seeming to contemplate his moves, Todoroki believed he was witness to an unexpected pattern.

A senseless break-in at Midoriya Inko's home where the invader had appeared out of nowhere and left without taking a single thing.

An unexplained intrusion to Uraraka's dorm room from a girl they had not been able to see when they had tried to visit her on the next day.

And, now, a stranger who's appearance Todoroki had not managed to witness was playing shogi with him.

This could have been a simple series of unconnected events that just happened to coincide... Or this could have been a series of events that were completely connected.

Knowing their luck, this was all connected and it was only the beginning of something much bigger than themselves.

Now, after he had lost five different games to Nara and midnight was nearing, Todoroki knew that he needed to make a decision.

"Where are you from?" He asked as they prepared the board for one final game.

When he looked at his newest shogi partner, it was to find that he had a small frown weighing at the corners of his lips. His eyes were closed, but Todoroki was extremely sure that this was because he was thinking hard on his answer.

Why would he have to think so much for such a simple question?

"I am going to be honest- I'm not from around here. I'm not even from your... well... _world_."

Todoroki blinked.

Nara opened his eyes and he could find no trace of any kind of dishonesty within.

"I come from a village called Konohagakure and I'm a ninja. Along with four other teammates, I was investigating an artefact that was rumored to have magical properties, but we didn't know the full extent of its power. Because of some very bad decision making, the artefact came to life- and now I'm here and I need to find the rest of my team."

There was no doubt about it: this was the beginning of something big.

Todoroki sighed softly.

Of course it was the beginning of something big.

* * *

Seeing how it was the middle of the night, the pink haired girl decided that it would be a good idea for them to return to her workshop to continue speaking. Apparently, even though she _technically_ was allowed to use these specific grounds for trying out experiments, she apparently had a curfew that she constantly ignored.

As they walked, the girl rattled off a whole bunch of information about the school and grounds, apparently excited over meeting someone that knew absolutely about one topic she was so passionate about. While she spoke, Tenten took stock of all of her surroundings and began to memorize possible escape routes in case she needed to leave quickly.

"Okay, now you need to be very quiet. There're janitor-bots and they're the kind that can immediately tell Night-Life that there are students out curing curfew time."

"Night-Life?" Tenten couldn't help but question, and then backtracked, "Wait, Janitor-_bots_?"

What in the world was any of that?

The girl smiled broadly and began a rather long-winded explanation about one of the oddest yet most effective support class graduates- which left Tenten even more confused than before because... What in the world was any of this?

She was going to get some pretty bloody and painful revenge against Naruto when she saw him again. Most probably with the use of a rusty kunai too.

"Anyway, these robots are outfitted with some pretty high-end tech that allows almost instantaneous communication between their sensors and Night-Life's own homing-device. This means that the second any of those bots sees a student out in the halls is the second that Night-Life descends on the poor student with demerits. So, if we don't want to get caught, we need to be really careful." The girl finished with her index finger raised and her eyes closed, as if offering great wisdom.

Kind of reminded Tenten of Naruto whenever he tried (and failed) to seem smart.

"I can be careful, trust me."

With a nod, the girl then began to lead the way and Tenten made sure to make no sound as they walked.

Quite frankly, most of the way was rather uneventful. Even though the girl was breaking out in what seemed to be a cold-sweat from all of the worry of getting caught, Tenten couldn't help but feel completely at ease. There were no insane chakra signatures that could worry her. There were rattling chains or clanging weapons. And, best of all, there was no eerie silence that foreshadowed an intense fight.

It was just a normal night and she was living for it.

The only true snag they hit was when they were just a couple of feet away from a metallic door that had a sign to its right that said _Development Studio_. Tenten was able to hear some beeping, then the girl hissed out in fear, and it was really more of an instinct than a choice when she threw the kunai in the direction of the _thing_ that rounded the corner.

All of the projectiles hit their targets- and would have killed a human being. Head, jugular, heart, and stomach were all her targets. And they all hit where they were supposed to have hit.

But no one died.

Well... No _person_.

The girl let out a squeal, which was a mix of surprise and fear, and soon ran in the direction of Tenten's downed target. Tenten only stared at her and then got a good look at her target, only to find a green humanoid made out of metal. It had a circular head with a large red circle in the very center of it- and it now had a kunai deeply embedded within.

"That... That... That..."

Tenten racked her brain for a possible explanation as to what she was seeing, then remembered what the girl had been going on about before. "Is that the janitor-bot you were talking about?"

"That was _amazing_!"

In the blink of an eye, the girl had gone from kneeling on the floor to standing right in front of Tenten with her eyes widened with nothing short of pure excitement.

"I've got to run some tests on you- those were _the best_ reflexes I've ever seen in my life! Come on, help me drag this in and then we can get to work!"

She returned to the janitor-bot and picked up what Tenten assumed could be called an arm, then looked back at her expectantly.

Her team was still very much missing and she still very much needed to find them...

"Eh, what could it hurt?" the weapon mistress shrugged to herself with a small smile as she made her way to the janitor-bot's other side and picked up the other arm.

* * *

Naruto was sitting in a nurse's office with a lollipop in his mouth.

It was a good lollipop, he allowed himself to think as he looked on at both adults arguing with each other over what should happen next.

To his right, laying on a cot, was Hinata. She had a healing, green-and-ugly bruise on the upper right side of her forehead. And she looked extremely peaceful in her slumber.

"The proper authorities have to be notified."

"I agree. But Principal Nezu is the first that needs to be warned of the fact that _two_ people have appeared without a single explanation- this could be an issue that endangers the rest of our students, Yagi. Two teenagers pop up in the span of two nights, effectively getting past all of our security and alarms- this is not something to take lightly."

The skeleton guy breathed out, sounding even more tired than last night, and then relented with a nod.

"Alright. We'll tell him." After he said this, the skeleton man turned to look back at him and Naruto waved back with a small smile.

Yagi Tosinori was his name. He was a nice enough guy- he'd even given Naruto food and a place to sleep until morning came. Then he'd given him breakfast before he asked Naruto to follow him into the infirmary with him.

Because this guy had been nothing but nice to him this whole time- even though he looked like he was a one wrong decision away from kicking the bucket- Naruto had decided that following him wouldn't be a bad idea. And he had been right to decide this: He was now with Hinata! … Even though she was very much unconscious at the moment.

"Could it have been a teleportation quirk?" Yagi asked, and the little old lady that had given him the red lollipop sighed heavily.

"Possibly. But it did not belong to Hyuuga. I believe she has a healing related quirk from how quickly she has managed to recover from a rather serious concussion."

"Oh, Hinata." Naruto sighed as he looked down at the slumbering Hyuuga.

He felt kind of guilty- only a little bit- over the fact that she had gotten hurt. It had kind of been his fault that the artefact had suddenly lit up, he thought. So maybe it wasn't a stretch to say that Hinata had gotten a concussion because of him... _Damn_.

"Uzumaki?"

"Yeah?" He pulled out the lollipop from his mouth to look back at Yagi, only to find that he was frowning heavily yet again. "Would you mind telling us what your quirk is?"

"My... _quirk_?" His eyebrows scrunched up at the new word, then cocked his head to the side- all the while Yagi stared at him with nothing short of surprise. "What's that?"

There was a tense moment of silence between them as Yagi seemed to try and get past his surprise. Then he gasped out, "Well... It's a power you have."

"Power?" Immediately, Naruto felt like he could show off and be amazing. "Oh! I get it! Look at this!"

He jumped off of the cot he had been seated on and pressed his fingers together, gathered some chakra, and summoned forth a shadow clone to aid him in creating a rasengan.

As soon as his clone was created, Naruto heard a groan of pain from him.

"Boss, I don't feel so good."

Naruto turned to him and found that he _looked_ okay, even though he was holding onto his stomach.

"Think we can pull off a-" before he had even finished speaking, the clone's stomach distended outwards as if an explosion had gone off within.

"Boss, I-" His stomach popped.

A puff of smoke was the only evidence of there once having been a clone there.

Naruto's eyes widened as the severity of the situation came crashing down on him- he had felt fine and his chakra had been completely in control when he had summoned this clone.

If everything had been correct... Then why had the clone not lasted even ten seconds?

* * *

The dog was pretty nice company after he had calmed down, Shouji thought as he bandaged the hand that had gotten bitten by said animal. As he thought this, his lower right hand pet the dog's head.

When he had woken up, the dog had been violent and managed to bite Shouji's left middle hand. But the teenager had managed to convince him that he was safe and Shouji wasn't about to harm him in any way. It was odd that it seemed the animal was able to understand him completely by him just speaking, but he had seen even weirder things before- a dog understanding a human wasn't really all that farfetched in life.

Once he was finished bandaging his hand, the six-armed teen grabbed his phone and sent Kouda a text message asking him to come into his room as quickly as possible.

They only had one hour to get prepared to go to school and Shouji didn't think it would be a smart idea to leave this dog alone in his room during the whole school day. So if Shouji didn't want to get in trouble for something he honestly couldn't even begin to explain to himself, then he was going to need help from the only person he knew that was great with all animals.

Within ten minutes, Kouda was knocking on his door.

Luckily enough for him, his friend's dorm was on the same floor as him.

"Come in." He called out, "But hurry, please."

The door opened, Kouda peeked his head inside, and his eyes immediately widened when they fell on the large white animal that was blanketed over Shouji's lap.

If Kouda had been any of the girls, Shouji was sure he would have squealed audibly.

The door quickly shut behind his friend and then Kouda scurried so he could kneel beside the dog and begin to pet him.

The animal lifted his head with his eyebrows narrowed, lifting his lips in the beginnings of a snarl. Kouda offered his hand and murmured out that he wasn't an enemy. The dog sniffed Kouda's hands, then looked back at Shouji.

The six-armed teen wasn't sure why... But it almost looked as if the animal was asking for his own input.

"Kouda's my friend. He's nice." He found himself answering, then the dog huffed and laid his head back down on the floor.

Kouda began to run his hands over the soft white fur, then asked Shouji how he had snuck such a large dog into his dorm without waking anyone up.

Shouji sighed, leaned back on his lower hands, and scratched at the back of his neck with his upper right hand. He then explained the odd occurrence that had brought this large white dog into his room, leaving Kouda absolutely stunned.

After a couple seconds of silence, Kouda asked, "Are you going to keep him?"

Shouji frowned... But didn't know how to answer.

He had always liked animals. And this dog had literally dropped into his life.

"How am I even going to take care of him? What if I get caught?"

Kouda pointed out he had a rabbit.

Shouji didn't bother to respond.

Then his friend pulled out his phone from his pocket and offered, "If you really want to keep him, we can ask Tokoyami for his advice."

Shouji looked down at the dog that was so large he fully encompassed his lap and spilled out of it. The dog looked back at him with wide eyes- was this dog using the puppy-dog eyes? No way.

"Well... I guess that if we really need the help... The rest of 1-A will help hide him from Aizawa-sensei."

As long as it was something they weren't supposed to be doing, 1-A worked effectively and strategically to get away with it. Besides, he had helped on other various ventures that he shouldn't have just to help his classmates out. Maybe... Just maybe, they would help him out in this one small endeavor.

~/~

He had both teenagers completely manipulated. Playing the cute card was the best bet to getting on someone's good side, after all.

Akamaru was very much aware of the fact that his human was nowhere near him. Just like neither of their teammates. He _could_ smell the faintest traces of what he thought was Hinata lingering in the air, but this scent was stale and old. It could have been important, or it could have just been his nose playing tricks on him.

He needed answers and he needed them now.

While Six Arms and Rock Face- just why did these humans look so _weird_?- spoke to one another about keeping him hidden from their teachers, Akamaru began to formulate a plan to be able to reach Hinata's scent and see if he could begin to follow it.

Stale and old as it may have been, it was the only familiar scent he had around him.

..~..~..

I hope you all liked this chapter! Please remember to review and tell me what you thought!


	3. Chapter 3

I just wanted to clear up that this story is happening well before the Fourth Great Ninja War in the Naruto world, but after the kidnapped Gaara arc- which means that Naruto is still very much an idiot learning about the ways of the world; and the rest of the chunin are still not completely mature, either. In the My Hero Academia world, this happens after the Provisional License Arc because I'm trash that doesn't read manga.

Please, do enjoy~

~..~..~

_Chapter 3_

It was as he was trying to climb down one of the smaller metallic buildings that his chakra failed him.

Upon the first slip-up, Kiba chided himself for having lost concentration on his hands long enough to have one un-stick from the surface. When his left hand came loose for a second time, he huffed at himself, shook his head, and tried to focus before he became a mere splatter on the ground below. But when both his hands detached from the wall and his feet lost all sort of control, Kiba knew that something aside from his concentration had gone very wrong.

The wind bit at the back of his body as he plummeted to the ground below.

He knew that from the distance he had fallen, he wouldn't die upon impact. He would only be severely injured... Maybe if he took a soldier pill... No, that was risky. There was not other need to consume one other than the fact that it seemed his chakra had failed. And seeing how he had a limit of how many he could consume in a tight time frame without causing irreversible damage to his body, it wasn't a resource he should resort to so soon.

With a growl, Kiba tried to force himself to think on some kind of solution to his problem.

He _tried_ to think. But the smells infiltrating his nose were so pungent that he was barely able to _think_ anymore!

Shouting out in actual terror now, Kiba forced himself to roll over and look down at the floor. His best bet at this point was to just to land on his hands and feet and hope that he only broke one appendage, rather than them all.

"I hate Naruto!" He allowed himself to voice one final shout of anger before he came to face with the sidewalk below, but soon found his eyes widening in pure shock when a purple vortex appeared before his eyes.

A cold sweat swept through him as his very _organs_ shriveled at the sudden chill that overcame him. In the span of a second, he found a wholly different image in front of him: the asphalt wasn't coming up at him anymore; he was standing on it.

With his hands and legs curled up and still prepared for impact, Kiba blinked owlishly as he noticed that there wasn't anymore wind wiping around him anymore.

He was on solid ground.

"What the-"

"If you don't have excellent control of your abilities, you should not be trying to climb up such high buildings, I would presume."

When Kiba turned to look at the person that had spoken... He actually screamed out in surprise.

"What's wrong with your head?!"

He heard a heavy sigh as the plume of purple smoke on the person's head seemed to shake from side to side, as one would do with a regular head. Then, "Nothing is wrong. This is merely the physical manifestation of my quirk."

There was a regular body, clad in pristine and clean, yet _really weird_ clothes beneath the purple smoke. And there was a set of long yellow slits that could, maybe, be eyes on the odd head... What the hell was going on in this world? First the smells were horrible and now the people weren't even _human_?!

"Is that truly the way you should address the person that saved you from becoming a pancake on the concrete?"

Those were two words Kiba didn't know. But he soon sneered, forced his body to relax, and bowed deeply at the man. "I'm sorry for being so rude. Thank you for saving me." Then he straightened up and crossed his arms over his chest, "It's just... It's been a bad day, okay?"

The smoke _hummed_, then a concentration of smoke rose from his arm was- Kiba guessed it must have been a hand. "It would have been a rather painful hit and cost me nothing. Bad day, you say?"

Kiba sighed heavily, then nodded. "Let's just say that I have no idea what's going on or what I'm supposed to do." He sniffed at the air once more, felt his stomach lurch and roll, and gagged. "And that I'm sick and tired of this place's smell."

"Oh?" The man questioned, then stepped to the side, "Would you like to come into my bar? Maybe it will offer a reprieve from the smell- I know how overwhelming it can be to have quirk you can't stop."

There was that word again. Just what was a _quirk_?

"Yeah. That'd be nice." Kiba smiled at the man as he began to follow him, "Name's Kiba, by the way."

"Kurogiri. It is a pleasure to meet you, Kiba."

It seemed like his luck was finally starting to turn around! This Kurogiri seemed to be like a pretty swell guy. Uptight, like Shino. But nice enough.

* * *

Time was hard to keep track of when you were constantly drifting in and out of consciousness. Hinata wasn't really able to take much note of everything that happened around her- only what remained constant, like the room she was in and the old woman that was treating her wounds.

It was because of how disjointed her reality and consciousness were that she was completely caught off guard when she saw Naruto's broadly smiling face looming over her.

"Hey! Hinata, you're awake! Am I glad to see you again! I've been worried because of you! And because my shadow clones don't work anymore! And because there's this creepy skeleton guy that hasn't let me out of his sight! And they have talking animals here too! There's a cute mouse called Nezu and he's wearing clothes and he's ado-Hey, Hinata? Are you still with me?"

As soon as her eyes had fallen on Naruto's bright blue own, her whole face had become so red and hot that she had forgotten ever having thought that this room was kind of cold. The further he had spoken, the less she had been able to breathe.

Eventually, darkness consumed the edges of her eyes once again.

Having Naruto near her really was _dangerous_.

This was her last thought before she fainted, yet again.

The last thing she heard, though, wasn't Naruto's voice. It was a female voice that sounded a lot like Tenten's, "You, Naruto, are a complete idiot and I still don't understand how you made chunin."

* * *

Todoroki warned him to stay put during the day as they had breakfast.

He had spent the night sleeping on the other boy's bed, all the while he had pulled out a sleeping bag for himself. Shikamaru had felt somewhat guilty over Todoroki sleeping on the floor, but he had insisted that he hadn't minded doing so at all.

Shikamaru had been awoken by Todoroki's own stirring. When he had asked what time it was, Todoroki had informed him that it was five thirty in the morning and that he would look for breakfast for the both of them; he should stay and rest a bit more while he did this. Shikamaru had, of course, agreed to being left alone for a couple of minutes.

As soon as the door had closed behind his newest ally, Shikamaru got to thinking on possible routes he could embark on to begin to search for his teammates.

By the time Todoroki had come back with two bowls filled with what seemed like simple cereal with milk, Shikamaru had come to the conclusion that there wasn't much he could do in the department of tracking anyone down. He was neither Kiba nor Akamaru, and he had very limited skills in sensing.

"That magical artifact that transported you here- you don't have it with you to use it to return?" Todoroki questioned softly as he closed the door behind him.

Shikamaru was aware of Todoroki acting in the manner he was for a reason. Speaking softly and sneaking around were all signs to trying to be secretive.

If Todoroki wanted him to keep quiet, Shikamaru would.

"I don't have it with me." He admitted as he took the bowl that was offered to him, "Even if I did, I still have the small problem of needing to find the rest of my team before I try to go back home."

Todoroki nodded, ate a spoonful of cereal, and asked, "So you'll have to find these teammates of yours before you think of anything else."

"Basically."

They fell into silence as they ate after that.

Shikamaru knew that his options were limited because of the situation he had been thrust into. Until he found any of his teammates, he was at a complete loss as to what to do.

Quite frankly, it seemed that he would have to rely on Kiba and Akamaru finding him first. If they found him, then it wasn't a stretch that they would then be able to find everyone else with the Inuzuka's skills in tracking. But until that happened, Shikamaru was a sitting duck.

"Hey... Do you happen to have any books or scrolls on your world's history?"

He may not be able to do much when it came to reuniting his team, but he was able to _learn_.

Todoroki blinked at him with sedated surprise, then he nodded. "Yeah. I do. You'd like them?"

Shikamaru nodded, "It's only prudent to learn as much as I can about this new world."

Todoroki hummed with a nod of his own and didn't question anything else.

"I'm going to need you to stay in here for the rest of the day- I still need to figure out what to do with you." Todoroki informed him as he finished eating his cereal. "I don't want any of my classmates assuming anything, so I'm going to need you to stay hidden. Is that alright with you?"

Hmm... It was odd that Todoroki was willing to go to such lengths to keep him hidden. But Shikamaru wasn't about to deny any help he was given.

He was clearly being kept secret by the other teen for a reason. If Todoroki thought it was prudent to keep his presence a secret from his classmates- a dorm room, then-, then Shikamaru wasn't about to argue with him.

The rest of their morning was spent with Todoroki explaining what Shikamaru could and could not do within the dorms and what hours he could do said things in without getting caught. He also explained his own schedule and let him know by what time he would be returning with lunch and dinner. And, finally, he informed Shikamaru about the limited books he had, but that he would return later on with some books he checked out of the library.

And so Shikamaru found himself cooped up inside of one room for the following two days, only speaking with Todoroki and reading from the various books the other teen brought to him.

During those two days of investigation, he found out a lot about this new world, including the individual powers most of the population wielded and how limited the hero profession truly was.

But the most pressing piece of information he found out during his time alone had nothing to deal with this new world. It was about his chakra. It was unstable and, basically, useless in battle.

It seemed that this world didn't have chakra as he was accustomed to.

He feared that it didn't have any chakra at all.

~/~

Todoroki had never had the experience of having a secret he _wanted_ to keep to himself.

But Nara was an interesting guy. Mostly because he came from a world that was very different to his own. But also because he was so... well... maybe relatable was the right word? Todoroki wasn't sure. But he was calm and smart, clearly thinking everything out before he committed to a plan. He was very different to all of his other friends and classmates.

He didn't want anyone taking Nara away.

The fact of the matter was that this was the kind of situation that asked for an adult to intervene because it could mean that the future of the world was at stake.

But... Todoroki didn't want Nara taken away.

So instead of telling anyone about his secret, Todoroki merely kept quiet about the new inhabitant of his dorm. He offered his own clothes for Nara to use to get dressed and change out of his 'mission clothes' and did his best to keep him busy with books so he wouldn't have much of a reason to leave his room.

He knew that eventually, Nara would have to leave his room. But Todoroki was merely buying time to be able to think up of a contingency plan in case any of his classmates caught sight of the other teenager.

After two days, he had come up with a pretty good excuse to use if anyone found Nara. He'd merely say that he was an estranged cousin that had runaway from an orphanage and had no one else to turn to. If his classmates truly had compassion, they wouldn't rat him out.

When he told Nara this, the spiky haired teenager nodded and said that it was a good enough ruse. So they both agreed during that third night they spent in his room together- if anyone found him, Nara would lie about who he truly was.

Todoroki wasn't sure exactly what would happen if anyone found out he wasn't from this world... But he was sure that something _would_ happen. And he didn't want anyone taking away his new friend.

* * *

Tenten was sweating profusely.

The pink haired girl was smiling so widely it seemed that her face was mere seconds away from splitting.

The machinery Tenten had been strapped to was smoking for some reason beyond her and Tenten didn't actually care; she needed some rest after the insanity she had just been put through.

"Brava! Brava! Truly, that was amazing! I've never had anyone be so perfect that they actually glitched my programming! Your hits were so perfect that I think you would even beat Snipe-sensei with that quirk of yours!"

Tenten huffed, stomach beginning to roll slightly with the force of her inhales and exhales. With a hiss of strain, she struggled to raise her right arm to wipe at the sweat that rolled down her forehead.

She still wasn't a hundred percent sure what quirk was supposed to be. But she had been able to piece together that it was supposed to be some kind of skill where someone excelled in- so the girl believed that Tenten had a quirk that dealt with marksmanship. Because of this, she had been strapped into a 'computer simulation'- Tenten had no idea what any of that was- that had worked to calculate just how accurate her aim was.

It had been like being under genjutsu, but not breaking it. Tenten had wound up with dark goggles pulled over her eyes and, at first, she had seen nothing. The pink haired girl had then taped on some cold and blunt small plates onto her arms and legs, stepped back, pressed some buttons for a couple of minutes, and told her she was excited to see her results.

Soon the image of enemies clad in dark clothes had filled her vision and she had moved on instinct, jumping to avoid all attacks and throwing her own kunai directly at all of them.

The girl had screamed, but Tenten had ignored her when all of her kunai hit their marks. At first, this had been a very simple exercise, but soon the enemies had grown smarter and began to try and doge all of her attacks and hit her with much more intensity. So Tenten had been forced to turn up her own movements and attack with even more ferocity.

It was when she heard a wild beeping and the girl screaming that she began to worry over what was happening. The enemies in front of her began to grow larger and smaller, turning into small pixels and disappearing eventually- leaving Tenten in total darkness yet again.

When the girl pulled off the goggles that had obscured her vision, Tenten found that the workshop she had been pulled into was now decorated with kunai embedded into all of its walls. The girl was smiling widely, even as the machine behind Tenten smoked and beeped lifelessly.

"I'm going to have to turn up the difficulty if you were able to get such a great score!" The girl remarked as she walked back towards the 'computer' that she had been clacking at before Tenten's challenge had commenced. "And, next time, there's no need to throw any real weapons. You've got sensors on your hands for a reason."

Tenten blinked at the 'sensor', which, of course, looked nothing like a person that could sense chakra, and finally pulled the little plates off of her body.

"Well, that was amazing." The girl decided as she placed her hands on her hips and turned back to Tenten. "You're my new test subject! The name's Hatsume Mei and I hope you don't mind helping me out with my experiments."

For a second, Tenten just stared. Then she smiled, finished one large inhale, and offered her own name, "Tenten. And, I wouldn't mind helping you out, but I really should go out and do-"

"Hatsume! What have I told you about midnight-"

All out of kunai, Tenten grabbed a scroll from the pouch on her waist and opened it in the direction of the intruder, immediately summoning a barrage of shuriken to fly at the person.

With a shout of surprise, the man with the odd metallic helmet dodged out of the way and barely avoided getting hit by the barrage.

Her eyes narrowed at this- they were supposed to have traveled faster than they had. What was that about? … Maybe she was tired after the exercise she had been put through... Maybe she was just more tired than she thought she was...

"Whoa! Stand down, Tenten!" Hatsume appeared in front of her with her arms thrown to either side, "That's my teacher! Not an enemy."

The man growled at Hatsume and her, then began to yell at her over having used such a dangerous attack on school grounds.

Tenten merely blinked at the man in confusion, wondering if it would be a bad thing to knock him out now and escape rather than have to listen to his scolding.

* * *

The skeleton guy and old lady merely attributed his clone's explosion to lack of control of his supposed 'quirk'. Whatever a quirk was supposed to be, they now thought that his had something to do with creating copies of himself.

Naruto didn't bother explaining to them that he didn't have a quirk and his powers weren't limited to just 'clone creation'. He was much too busy trying to figure out why his clone had exploded when he had done everything _right_.

After those two had seemed content to have figured out the secret about his quirk- they hadn't, he didn't have one!-, Naruto was then subjected to an array of different kinds of medical tests to determine his health. He had come out with mostly flying colors, except for, apparently, his levels of sodium- whatever that happened to be. He was sure he'd heard Sakura mention it before, but he had never paid her any mind.

Once they had finished poking and prodding at him with needles and straps and x-rays and all those unsavory things, they had walked him out of the infirmary and straight through a rather nice set of hallways within the school they both worked in.

They led him into a large room with a huge mahogany desk. There were bookcases on either wall, filled to the brim with all sorts of fancy looking books, and two comfortable looking chairs stationed directly in front of the huge desk. A leather bound, huge chair, sat with its back turned to them on the other side of the desk.

"Principal Nezu, we have the intruder here."

A heavy silence fell over the room after the skeleton guy had said this.

Naruto shifted on the balls of his feet, feeling the electric tension beginning to fill the room. He wasn't an idiot- intruder wasn't something anyone wanted to be when they were caught in an unknown place. Even though he didn't have his clones working properly, that didn't mean he wasn't about to roll over and allow anyone to beat him- he was ready for a fight!

The chair swiveled around in the blink of an eye... And Naruto lost it.

"Oh my God, you're adorable!"

The white creature had its beady eyes widen as Naruto rushed at it. Before it could even react, it was caught in Naruto's grasp, getting hugged properly.

Behind him, he heard both the old lady and the skeleton guy scream out in despair over his actions. But he couldn't stop himself- this creature was adorable!

"Could you please let go of our principal?" He heard the woman ask in a surprised huff, "He really isn't a toy to be throwing around."

Naruto glanced down at the rat-like creature, noticed that it was looking up at him with wide, curious eyes, and squeezed it even tighter to him. "He's so cute, though... He's even dressed up!"

~/~

Five minutes was the time it took to convince the blonde teenager to stop cuddling their principal.

Yagi breathed out in relief when Nezu was returned to his proper place in his office chair, then stopped himself from shaking his head at Naruto's exuberance. The kid didn't seem to have any malicious intent, but he was still a danger- or, at least, he tried to remind himself.

Uzumaki was just like any of his own kids. Young, bright-eyed, and eager to take on the world. He didn't seem to be too preoccupied with many worries. The only time Yagi had seen him without a smile had been after his clone had exploded, as if he hadn't expected such a failure.

Now that Nezu had been returned to his proper place, Yagi was able to explain to him just how it had been that Uzumaki had entered the picture. Then Recovery Girl had explained how two of his own students had brought the young Hyuga into her infirmary only two days before Uzumaki had appeared.

"Most troubling..." Nezu muttered, then said, "A student from the support class also had such an encounter- with a girl that only supplied the name Tenten. No last name."

"Whoa! Tenten too!" Uzumaki jumped up with an excited whoop from his chair, "Hinata and Tenten! We're halfway to getting our team back together!"

Yagi blinked in surprise at the admission, then Nezu questioned, "Team? There are more of you?"

Uzumaki nodded quickly, "Yup, there's five of us. Or six if you count Akamaru. Hyuuga Hinata, Tenten, Nara Shikamaru, Inuzuka Kiba, Akamaru, and me- the best! Uzumaki Naruto!"

"This is most worrying. Did they all manage to infiltrate our Academy?" Recovery Girl questioned, which had Nezu sighing.

"The only reported incidents have been these three children we now know about. But, knowing our students, it is very possible that the rest _did_ enter U.A. grounds but were not reported." Nezu clasped both his paws together with a heavy frown on his lips, "After all, if it had been up to Hatsume Mei, she would have kept Tenten's appearance a secret. It was only because Power Loader caught them in the workshop after hours that he was able to inform us of the girl's existence."

Silence fell over all of them after Nezu said this, only to be broken by Recovery Girl's tired sigh. "We need to find out _how_ they teleported in here."

"Oh, that's easy!" Uzumaki, yet again, interrupted with a broad smile. "It's because of an artifact-scroll thingy we were investigating."

This young man's ease in telling them all he knew was fascinating... And worrying.

He was sure that he was the only person thinking this at the moment, but he was glad that these children had fallen into U.A. grounds, rather than in any other dangerous territory. He didn't want to think about what might have happened to someone as chipper as Uzumaki if faced against a villain.

* * *

Tokoyami insisted that the best course of action at the moment was to keep the dog hidden from all teachers and have one key member of 1A meet him to get the ball rolling.

Because this was supposed to be his dog, Shouji decided to fake sick with help from his friends so he didn't have to leave the animal alone in his dorm. Kouda and Tokoyami promised to do their best to take notes and sell the story that he was feeling extremely ill so their classmates didn't truly question why he wasn't in class even though he had been fine the past night.

The only thing Tokoyami asked him to do, aside from making sure that the dog didn't destroy anything within the dorms, was to think of a possible student that would fall in love with the dog and cause the rest of their class to rally behind them.

For this, Shouji had a good idea of who it could be. Ashido Mina, Midoriya Izuku, Uraraka Ochaco, and Yaoyorozu Momo were all loved by all of 1A and had good enough dispositions to undoubtedly fall in love with the dog. Any of them would be perfect to fall in love with his new dog and then convince the rest of their class to keep him a secret.

He just had to decide on one of them, he guessed.

Because he was not going to class today, Shouji decided that he may as well catch up on some much needed sleep. So he moved back down on his mattress, took one final look at the dog (_his dog_), smiled softly at himself, and closed his eyes.

~/~

He waited some twenty minutes to make sure that the human was completely asleep. Once he was very sure that the six-armed human wouldn't suddenly wake up, Akamaru made his way towards the door and glared at it.

Doorknobs were a dog's worst enemy.

At first, he tried biting at the instrument of torture. But his teeth merely slid off of the metal and he wound up biting his tongue once because of that.

With a huff, Akamaru looked back at the six-armed boy to make sure he was still sleeping. After he was content to see that he was snoring softly, the dog raised himself onto his hind legs and sat down on his butt. This was uncomfortable and very weird, but now he was able to use the pads of both his front paws to grab at the knob.

It took three failed attempts, but eventually the dog was able to get a good grip with both his paws and turned the knob to the right. There was a click and soon the door opened up in front of him, making Akamaru smile at himself in victory.

Once he was out in the hallway, the first thing Akamaru did was sniff at the air to make sure that he was alone in the house.

He wasn't.

And the subtle smell of delicious deer that entered his nostrils made his mouth water and brain begin to turn.

Hinata's stale scent also hit him, so the dog decided to check that smell out before he did anything else. Following the trail of the girl's scent, he found himself in front of a door that a sign of what seemed like stairs stuck in the center of it- a staircase, then.

Akamaru frowned at the odd metal bar that was in the very middle of the door and tried to push at it with his left shoulder. The door didn't budge and his investigation stalled.

With a growl of aggravation, Akamaru decided to investigate the barely present smell with hints of deer. Turning back around, the dog returned the way he had come from and passed by the six-armed teen's door. A couple of doors past that, to his left, Akamaru sniffed at the edges of the door and found that the smell of deer was coming from this specific room.

He growled once again as he was faced with yet another doorknob.

He _hated_ doorknobs.

As he mentally prepared himself to go through the embarrassing position he needed to take to open the door, he heard the six-armed teen groan as he got up.

Akamaru's eyes widened as he turned back to see the large boy walk out of his room, his eyes wide as he searched for him.

"Hey, what're you doing over there, boy?" The human asked him as he walked up to him, "That's Todoroki's room. You're not supposed to go in there."

Akamaru huffed, pondered on his choices, and finally decided that he may as well humiliate himself a little bit to save himself from having to open the doorknob.

With an animated bark, he began to paw at the bottom of the door. The human's eyes widened and he quickly ran to him, trying to silence him. But Akamaru continued to bark and paw at the door, trying to make it look like he had found a creature in there. Maybe if the human thought he had found a rat or other such creature, he would open the door for him.

"No, you have to stop that! You're not getting into Todoroki's room!"

He felt two hands on his side as the human tried to push him away from the door, but Akamaru ignored them and continued to scratch at the door.

"You're making too much noise! I'm not supposed to have a dog in here, you know!"

He kept scratching and scratching, barking at the human in urgency.

But the human wasn't budging.

"That's it."

Six appendages wrapped around his stomach and hauled him up and Akamaru was actually so surprised by the unexpected show of strength that he was frozen.

Not even his own human carried him because of how heavy he was.

This guy was no joke.

"I have no idea how you got out, but it can't happen again, it seems." The boy continued as he carried Akamaru back into his room, then let him down on the floor after he had shut the door behind him.

Akamaru stared, wide-eyed, at the human as he turned around and contemplated the door. "I could have sworn Kouda closed this before he had left..."

How strong was this guy? Were the rest of the humans around him as strong as him?

He hadn't even _strained_ to pick Akamaru up!

"I guess I'll tell Todoroki that he might have a rat problem later," He continued talking to himself before he looked back at Akamaru with slightly narrowed eyes. "Well, I guess I should get you some food... And probably a collar and leash so I don't have to carry you around- you're not a stuffed animal, after all."

No. No he was not. Yet this guy had picked him up as if he had been.

With a quick shake of his head, Akamaru forced himself to concentrate. He would just have to bide his time until he was able to investigate the deer-infused scent he had smelled coming from that room.

..~..~..

And so the plot thickens... Hope y'all liked this chapter! Please review and tell me them thoughts I know y'all have got!

If y'all have any questions, please ask away. If they deal with the plot itself, odds are that I won't answer in an Author's Note because they will get answered within the story itself. If not, though, I'll answer in an A/N.

Thank y'all for all the love and support!


	4. Chapter 4

Remember, folks, adversity is the number one tool for certified character development.

Enjoy~

~..~..~

_Chapter 4_

Kiba Inuzuka was the boy's name. Granted, Kiba was an _odd _surname, just like Inuzuka was a rather lengthy first name, Kurogiri did not question the boy's introduction. He seemed honest and naïve enough to be trustworthy.

This teen seemed to have a sort of feral air about him that made Kurogiri feel drawn to him. He was sure that his quirk must have been something useful with how animalistic he seemed to be. His mention of the _tiring _smell of the air around them undoubtedly pointed towards an affinity to scent that he knew could be useful if given the correct circumstance.

And the correct circumstance was the kind that Kurogiri was faced with at the moment.

"I need to find my friends. But I can't even catch a whiff of their smell in this place." The teenager ranted to him and Kurogiri hummed in sympathy to let him know he was listening.

Currently he was preparing a glass of water for the teenager, even though he could see how much he wanted a taste of the alcohol behind him. Although Kiba had asked for water and was kept occupied by explaining to Kurogiri over what had happened to him, the man could see how his attention was wholly taken up by the alcohol.

The boy had not asked for it, but Kurogiri could tell that he really wanted to.

The planned formed within his mind in the span of a couple of seconds.

"It seems that this Naruto boy is a menace to himself and those around him." He offered conversationally as he set down his drying cloth on the bar and reached behind him for a bottle of inexpensive saké.

He may be trying to seem kind, but he wasn't about to waste too much money on such a façade.

Kiba Inuzuka seemed to enjoy talking and was dumb enough to not contemplate too much on explaining his whole story to Kurogiri. The man now knew that he came from another world- one without _chakra_, which he assumed was just another way to call quirk manifestation- and he was desperately looking for his other teammates so they could find a way to return to where they had come from.

In essence, he knew what Kiba wanted and that he was not aware of who Kurogiri or the rest of his compatriots were.

He could- no, he _would _use this.

But, first, he needed to convince the boy to aid him.

"Don't tell me about it." Kiba shook his head with a heavy scoff, trying to act nonchalant about his surprise when Kurogiri began to serve his alcoholic drink. "I, uh... I don't think I've got any money that'll be useful to you."

So _honest_.

Kurogiri chuckled warmly and shook his head, then raised the glass of saké towards the boy. "Let this be on the house- call it a condolence after the day you have had."

The boy's eyes lit up and he immediately thanked Kurogiri, then proceeded to gulp down the shot in the span of a few seconds. Once he was finished with the drink, he brought the glass back down onto the bar, making sure to place it softly, and nodded at the man.

"You're pretty alright, Kurogiri. I think you're the best thing in this stupid world."

Once more he chuckled in amusement.

Kurogiri could see how trusting Kiba was. Now all he needed was to find out the true extent of the boy's power and make sure that he truly was useful in the endeavor the man had in mind.

* * *

When she woke up this time around, Hinata was greeted by the smiling face of Tenten.

The kunoichi offered her what seemed to be like a bottle of water, but the paper around its middle was not any she could recognize.

"Alright, I kicked Naruto out of the room to go and practice his shadow clones, so you should be safe from any more spontaneous fainting for the meantime." With a roll of her eyes- most probably exasperated with Hinata's clear weakness to a certain blonde- Tenten sat down on the bed beside her. "It's great to see you awake. Naruto told me you've been drifting in and out for two or three days now."

The very thought of Naruto having been looking at her while she slept made Hinata's head swim and her cheeks redden.

"Oh come on, Hinata! What do you even see in that guy?" Tenten growled in irritation, "You do know he's the reason we're now stuck in a world unlike ours with no real way to go back, right?"

The question sent a spear of pure ice straight through her heart.

"W-wh-what d-d-d-d-do y-y-you me-mean?"

A world unlike ours?

What did that even _mean_?

What was Tenten talking about?

As she internally began to freak out, her breathing quickened and her eyes shot from looking at one point in the small room to another in an effort to find Kiba or Akamaru.

"Wh-wh-wh-"

Tenten's face went from annoyed to completely worried- eyes going wide as her mouth opened in what could be seen as surprise.

"Oh my God... You didn't know... You _don't_ know."

"Kn-know what-t?"

Was the thing that was beating uncontrollably- the thing that barely allowed her to listen to Tenten's words- her heart?

Oh no.

_Oh no_.

She was beginning to feel lightheaded.

She barely registered the way Tenten's face hardened.

"Okay, first of all, Hyuga, I need you to calm down!" Warm hands pressed onto her shoulders in an attempt to get her to lay down once again and Hinata allowed them to do this without posing a single bit of resistance.

"K-Kiba?" She squeaked out, eyes wide and fearful.

"Second of all, close your eyes and _breathe_. You're a chunin, for kami's sake! This isn't the end of the world- just an obstacle we've got to get through before we go back home victorious and fill out stupid mission reports and eat some of the great ramen that's at Ichiraku's. Have I been understood? Seeing how I'm the oldest and most experienced ninja we've got, I'm taking control of this mission. And my first order as Team Leader is for you to _breathe_!"

Listening only to Tenten's oddly comforting words helped Hinata get a grasp of her breathing. Even though her brain was currently drowning in the various thoughts of _home_, _where am I_, and _where are my teammates_\- Tenten's voice gave her something to anchor her concentration on.

"Now, once your breathing is under control, I'll explain everything I know. And then we'll see about finding the rest of our team."

A hand was now placed on her forehead, warm and soothing.

"Don't worry, Hinata. We'll get back to Konoha. We can't leave Neji alone, now can we? He'd just become a hermit without us."

The idea of her cousin isolating himself socially without Tenten's guidance was amusing, albeit mildly alarming.

"Now breathe."

Hinata forced herself to concentrate and do as she was ordered. New world or not; confused or not; _hopeless or not_... She was still a kunoichi of the Hidden Leaf Village. And she wasn't about to give up.

* * *

The incident with the dog had put Shikamaru on high alert. And because of this, he had decided that he needed to find out just to what extent his chakra reserves had been affected by traveling to this new, chakra-less world.

"Can you stand there for a couple of seconds? Don't do anything- and don't freak out, either. I'm not going to hurt you."

Todoroki blinked at him with confusion shining clear in his eyes. But he soon shrugged and remained in place, silently giving Shikamaru permission to go through with whatever it was that he wanted to do.

Shikamaru smiled gratefully at the teen, then balled up two of the fingers on his right hand, leaving the index and middle pointed up. Once he had done that, he covered those two with the tips of his left hand's fingers, then finished by curling up both his thumbs. Then he untensed his shoulders, rooted his feet into the ground, and glared over at the shadows his feet formed on the floor.

With the ease of the hundredth time repeating this jutsu, he was able to send his shadow outwards and towards Todoroki, completely ensnaring the teen.

He did not smile, even with how fast he had managed to do this.

"Can you move?"

The dual-haired teen tried to move and Shikamaru felt the tugs at his Shadow Possession Jutsu. He held tight and forced Todoroki to stay put, earning a surprised look from the other boy.

"Is your quirk shadow control?" He questioned with awe clear, and Shikamaru couldn't help but smile regretfully.

He wasn't sure if he wanted to lie to the only ally he had, but he also wasn't sure what consequences there might be if said ally found out about chakra.

"Kind of." He settled on after a moment of thinking, then frowned.

He wasn't having any problem keeping a tight hold of Todoroki. The teenager's body hadn't even twitched in the time he had taken control of his shadow.

The complete lack of rationality to chakra was baffling and irritating. Sometimes, he couldn't send his shadow out more than a couple of _inches_ from his own body- as if he had the same chakra control he had been able to wield back when he was _five years old._ But now he was able to keep Todoroki completely ensnared- like he was able to do on a regular basis.

With a sigh of frustration, the Nara let go of his jutsu and tried to force his body to relax.

"Is everything alright, Nara?"

This one he knew he could answer honestly, albeit vaguely. So with a small frown, he nodded at Todoroki and sat back down on the bed as he pulled up the history book he had been learning about for the past few days.

"Don't you have homework you need to finish?"

Todoroki's eyes widened in an uncharacteristic show of blatant emotion, then he made his way towards his backpack to find his school supplies and get together.

Undoubtedly, by the time he had finished, he would ask Shikamaru once more about his supposed quirk.

Feasibly, by the time he did, Shikamaru would know how to answer. And, hopefully, he would have a better understanding of chakra in this new world by that time.

* * *

"So, you mean to tell me that your clones acted weird a day ago, yet you've done nothing to test out your chakra and see exactly what went wrong when one exploded in front of you?"

Naruto frowned at her exasperated question, but Tenten couldn't be bothered to worry about his feelings.

"Haven't you displayed enough incompetence at this point, Uzumaki? First you put us in this mess and now you don't even question the effects said mess has had on your jutsu?"

Yes, she _was_ happy that she was reunited with both Hinata and Naruto. Even though it had taken her and Hatsume getting caught by her teacher and her getting interrogated by said teacher, she was happy to see familiar faces.

She would only be happier, though, once she was with the rest of her teammates and they were on their way back home.

Right now, though, knowing that Naruto's Shadow Clone Jutsu had failed on him worried her. She wasn't an idiot and, even though _he was_, she was very much aware of how strong he was. He was like an ace in the hole when it came to his usefulness in battle with his chakra reserves. So she knew that, even with his major character flaws, she needed him.

"Well, maybe I've been worried about Hinata this whole time!"

Tenten was caught between believing this or calling out Naruto's bluff. _Everyone_ knew how much Hinata liked the jinchuuriki- even though it made zero sense. But Naruto's own feelings towards the Hyuga were, usually, pretty tame and non-reciprocal. So him being worried about Hinata was as likely as it wasn't.

She didn't want to worry over being wrong or right at the moment.

"That doesn't matter, idiot! We've still got a mission to complete. And seeing how we can't complete our mission at the moment, out objective right now is to find a way back home!" She placed her hands on her hips, doing her best to exude as much authority as she could possibly muster with all of the anxiety building up within her.

She was currently on a planet that had never even heard of Konohagakure or shinobi or chakra. This was a planet with_ quirks and Japan and pro-heroes_. She had no idea how they were supposed to return home... Or if they even _could_. And she was stuck with a currently unconscious Hinata Hyuga and a still very much idiotic Naruto Uzumaki.

She held no disdain for Hinata- but she preferred Neji over his cousin any day. Not just because he was battle hardened and very much more reliable to _not faint_ when Naruto was around- but also because she knew how to work with him unlike with any other. Her teamwork with Neji and Lee was incomparable, especially when she was stuck with Naruto, Hinata, Shikamaru, or Kiba.

"Show me a shadow clone right now!"

"You know, you're being pretty bossy right now." The blonde dared grouch at him, but one simple glare had him shutting up and turning around to get in proper position to create a clone.

Tenten frowned at him, then looked around the room they had been corralled into by the man Naruto had lovingly dubbed Skeletor. The sign outside the room had read "Nurse's Office" and the place looked like a standard nurse station. Honestly, it kind of reminded Tenten of the one she had frequented back in her Academy days- after all those fights against bullies and shows of prowess to her classmates.

It was odd, though, to be confined to this single room and she found it hard to believe that Hinata had been kept in her for the past few days she had been getting treatment for the hit to her head. It was only obvious at this point that they were inside of a school- and it would be counterproductive for the nurse's office to be used as a permanent residence for a patient.

"There! Happy!"

There were two Naruto's now. One was looking at her with a frown, while the other looked down at himself with fear shining clear within his eyes.

"What's wrong with you?" She questioned the clone, who looked pleadingly at his creator.

"Boss, I don't wanna go out like the other guy!"

Naruto lifted his hand to pat the clone's shoulder, "I know. And I'm sorry. But this is a sacrifice Tenten was willing to make."

"So mean!"

"I agree."

Tenten growled at them and waited patiently for any signs of something going wrong with the clone. She even began to count the seconds to see just how long she could begin to expect the jutsu to go wrong.

Once a whole minute had passed, she began to think that maybe Naruto was pulling her leg with a tale of exploding clones.

"He's still fine, Naruto."

The blonde frowned and poked the clone's chest.

With a deafening scream, the clone's chest caved inwards, skin folding into skin in an inhuman manner. Eventually, nothing but smoke was left of the clone, drifting up towards the ceiling and leaving Tenten and Naruto staring at what was once a clone in shock.

"Well... That one's new." Naruto huffed, "It lasted a whole lot longer than last time. Maybe I've rested enough."

Tenten glared at him.

"There's something _very_ wrong with your chakra, Naruto. We're going to need to run some tests."

"But-"

The door into the office opened and the elderly woman known as Recovery Girl walked in. As soon as the door opened, both she and Naruto silenced themselves and smiled over at her.

Well, even though Naruto was an idiot, it seemed that he understood the need to keep _some things_ secret from the people that had found him.

* * *

"Ah, it's good to see that you're all awake and well." Skeletor smiled broadly at all of them as he walked into the infirmary room, Recovery Girl following close behind him.

Hinata and Tenten were seated on the bed and for the first time since they had been brought into this new world, there was color in Hinata's face. It wasn't much and she was still rather pale, but her cheeks were slightly flushed with a vibrant pink color that let Naruto know she was alive and well.

It had been kind of scary seeing someone that was usually so full of life so... _frozen_ on an infirmary's bed. Even though he had been stuck in hospital beds many times, it was still rather humbling to see someone else put in such a situation.

"Yup. We're all finally awake and well!" Tenten smiled softly as she patted Hinata's shoulder softly, then looked over at Naruto.

He nodded back at her with a smile, then shifted his gaze so that he was seeing both adults that had just entered the infirmary. Skeletor looked as frayed and tired as he normally did, but there were darker rings around his eyes than there had been the day before. Recovery Girl seemed to have a harder edge to her own face, as if she was determined to do something.

Reading the mood in a room was never something Naruto had been good at, but even he could tell that both adults were bothered by something. And that something was undoubtedly big.

"What's wrong?" He questioned both of them, immediately receiving a soft wince from Skeletor.

"We... Well, we've got to talk about something serious, kids." He murmured softly, then sighed and crossed his arms. "Recovery Girl, is Hyuga healthy enough for the conversation Principal Nezu wishes for us to have?"

"I will complete the check-up right now."

The elderly lady immediately made her way towards Hinata and began to pull out chords and odd looking medical equipment, immediately setting to work to evaluate Hinata.

During the evaluation, Tenten was asked to move away from the Hyuga for a bit. When this happened, Hinata looked at her with fear filled eyes, but with a calming smile from Tenten, she looked a bit more relieved. Tenten moved to stand right beside him, and while Skeletor busied himself with something on a technological device in his hand that would beep from time to time and Recovery Girl continued looking at Hinata, their newly appointed team leader decided to take part in a whispered conversation with him.

"This doesn't sound good."

Naruto blinked, shrugged, and finally answered back with, "I dunno, Tenten. I'm sure this can't be anything too bad. We _did_ kinda crash into their super elite Academy. They've got a reason to worry."

Tenten's eyes hardened as her lips pursed, "Super elite Academy with unbelievable technology and an almost totalitarian feel to the control. Naruto, we gotta leave this place, find Shika and Kiba, and then make a plan to finally leave this world."

Naruto frowned, looked over at the two adults from this world that had been constants in his life for the past few days, and frowned at the very idea.

"They've been nothing but-"

"As team leader, I'm ordering you to shut up and go along with this." Tenten cut in, sending a shock of anger hurtling through his whole body. "Once Hinata's given the OK, they're going to transport us. You're going to knock out Recovery Girl. I'll deal with Yagi. Once they're both down, we run. Got it?"

"Tenten, I really don't think-"

"No. You don't. And that's what got us into this mess in the first place."

Naruto glowered at the weapons mistress, but soon huffed in frustration and crossed his arms over his chest.

He didn't like it... But it seemed that no amount of talking would convince Tenten.

* * *

Shouji had not talked much to Uraraka before. She was a good student and nice enough classmate. When they had moved into the dorms, she had been one of the main proponents to instituting cooking and cleaning schedules within themselves and happened to be one of the better cooks amongst all of them. But Shouji's knowledge of her was very much limited- aside from knowing that she was one of the most influential people within their class.

Deciding to introduce her to his new dog wasn't an easy decision to come to, especially when there were three other classmates that were equally as influential as her when it came to swaying the ideas of the class. But he had decided on her because of her relative... _comfort_ when dealing with him.

Unlike Midoriya, who was always eager to ask him about his unique quirk manifestation, or Ashido, who was clearly confused when she saw him use his quirk close to him, Uraraka didn't seem to _care_. She didn't look at his six arms with worry or awe. Nor did she look at his mask with _pity_. She just looked at him as if he was another human being.

Yaoyorozu tried to not make him feel self-conscious when she talked to him, but like Ashido and Midoriya, she just wasn't all that good in obscuring her worries. Besides, she had been the first person he decided against because of her duties as the vice president of 1A.

"Ooh, a secret, Shouji? And you're gonna tell _me_?" Uraraka questioned eagerly, clearly excited at the secrecy of the situation. "Were Tokoyami and Kouda busy?"

Shouji smiled softly at the question and stopped walking in front of his room. Then he turned to her and brought his right upper arm to his lips- shushing him.

"They already know about the secret. But, it's a secret, Uraraka. So please, be quiet."

The girl's eyes shined with awe at the novelty of being brought into a secret with his small group of friends, but soon closed her mouth and mimed zipping it shut with her mouth. And then, for good measure, she threw away the fake key.

Shouji created two different eyeballs and a set of ears on his arms, then extended them outwards and towards the ends of the hall they were in to make sure there was no one around. He wasn't able to see a single person, but he _was_ able to hear his classmates on the floors above and below him.

Content with no eavesdroppers, Shouji slowly slunk his finger through the cracks on the door and undid the lock, then opened the door into his room. He allowed Uraraka to step in first, then quickly followed after her and shut the door before the large dog could even see the hallway.

Seeing how the dog had somehow escaped his room, Shouji had decided to be a bit more cautious with him. Even though he still was not sure just how in the world he had gotten out, he now made sure to lock the door when he was inside the room. And he had locked the door from the outside in the morning, and even though it was a nuisance to do so, it at least allowed him to make sure that the dog wouldn't escape at any moment.

"Oh my God! He's so cute!"

The dog jumped on Uraraka almost immediately, his tail wagging so quickly that it was barely a blur behind his body. With quick licks to her face, the animal barked in excitement.

If Shouji didn't know any better, he would think that the dog was playing up his cuteness to impress Uraraka.

"What's his name?"

His brain short-circuited.

Then he sighed softly, "I... Uh... Haven't named him."

"Oh." Uraraka helped set the dogs forelegs on the ground once more, then turned to Shouji with a bright excitement clear in her eyes. "Well, he's the cutest thing I've ever seen in my life... And I'm guessing I'm here because you want me to help convince the rest of the class to keep him a secret?"

"How-" Shouji choked on his words, completely caught off guard.

The small girl merely smiled broadly and cocked her head to the side, all the while her right hand began to pet at the dog's head. "Aoyama tried to do that with a litter of kittens he found a month ago already. Unfortunately, it turned out that he had stolen the kittens rather than adopted them, so he had to return them." She soon shrugged and knelt beside the dog, beginning to pet him with both hands. "I've got some experience with this kind of situation."

The explanation made sense... But it was still completely out of left-field.

"So... Uh..." He floundered for words, then finally mumbled out, "Will you help?"

Uraraka merely smiled and hugged the dog by the neck.

"Although, you _will_ have to name him. Shows how much you care." After saying this, the girl kissed the dog's head and patted him on the back. "Okay, step one: convince Uraraka, completed! Now onto step two, and then step three!"

"Step two?"

There was a fire in her eyes now... It was impossible to miss.

"Name your dog, of course." She smiled broadly, "Step three: Convince Ashido, Todoroki, Ojiro, and Bakugo to help!"

"Uh..." Shouji blinked at his classmate. "Why... Why them?"

"I'll explain once you've named this cute fella."

..~..~..

Please review and tell me what you thought about this!


	5. Chapter 5

Let me start off by apologizing for not having updated in forever. I've been working through a writer's block for the past year it feels, and I've only recently found inspiration for many of my stories come back. This one included.

Allow me to follow by saying that, yes, Tenten is being a bitch. But please do remember that not only is she stuck in a world where she's slowly coming to see she has no true control over chakra _and_ is separted from her team, but also has to worry over the fact that she doesn't know anyone there. To her, these people could be good or they could poke and prod at them like aliens. Her only objective is to return to her world- it isn't to make friends.

Everyone's stupid, yeah, but they're not in their world and are slowly having to piece shit together without any prior knowledge about it. At the end of the day, even though the genre isn't humor, the summary of the story should be enough of a tip-off as to how not-serious the story is supposed to be. Yeah, it's pretty serious. But I'm not taking it too seriously to write because to me this is just a fun little project.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter. I have tried to tone down the dumber and bitchier aspects of the Naruto cast. But please do keep in mind that these are just kids and they're in a world unlike their own with no idea who they can or cannot trust. Mistakes will be made.

..~..~..

To be inside of a dilapidated building in such a putrid environment, this Kurogiri's bar actually smelled rather nice. There was still the underlying scent of rancid waste permeating the smell inside, but Kiba could tell that the man had made an effort to eradicate it. This place smelled like cleaning products and scent modifiers. Normally, Kiba hated these smells as much as the bad ones- they were perfumed and messed with his tracking too. But, in this case, they were a much welcome reprieve.

After the long string of misadventures he had suffered, Kiba was truly grateful to see that his luck was turning around. Not only had Kurogiri's bar offered salvation to his poor nose, but the free drink had helped warm him up.

"Kiba, I am having difficulty finding one of my business partners. He has not answered his phone in a day and he is not in the basement as he should be. Would you by any chance know any way to find him?" Kurogiri materialized from the door he had disappeared down five minutes ago, sounding only mildly worried.

The lack of _true_ worry tipped Kiba off to the man not really being all that eager about finding the person he was looking for. But Kiba still answered to the best of his extent, "If you've got anything that belongs to him, I _might_ be able to sniff him out." still, he leaned back in his chair and scratched at his cheek with the tip of his right index finger. "Then again, if he's outside of this building, it's very like the rankness outside'll completely throw me off."

The purple smoke that was supposed to the be the guy's head- this world was _weird_\- nodded. Then his smoking hand disappeared down a vortex of purple, before reappearing with a long, red fabric. From the looks of it, it was ragged and old; clearly, it had seen better days before. The lizard-like smell hit Kiba immediately, cutting through the perfume of the bar in no time.

For the smell to be this strong, this must have been a clothing item Kurogiri's business partner wore a lot. Sweat was a tracker's best friend because of how pungent its scent was- and it was a person's _natural_ scent.

"Will this be enough?"

Kiba nodded and couldn't stop himself from asking, "Is he... uh, does he have any... hmm..." how was he supposed to ask if the guy was weird looking like Kurogiri _without_ insulting the guy that had been kind to him?

"Do you smell anything odd about his scent?"

Slowly, Kiba nodded once more. He continued to look at Kurogiri, wary about his possible reaction. He didn't want to insult anyone- but he also couldn't act as if it was _normal_ for someone to smell like an _animal_.

Everybody had a unique scent. Most humans' scents adapted to that which they were surrounded the most by. A blacksmith normally smelled like metal; a florist's scent was naturally perfumed; and a fisher's was filled with salt and sea. Only a _few_ cases shared distinct scents that were not natural, yet _not alive_. Naruto, Orochimaru, and Gaara were the only people he had personally smelled that had scents filled with an animal's. And this partner's scent was much like Orochimaru's- reptilian. Although there was a certain undertone that reminded the Inuzuka more of lizard than snake.

There was soft hum from Kurogiri, then he nodded his head slowly. "He's gecko-like in appearance. His quirk, much like my own, manifested in altering his physical appearance."

"Oh."

Kiba blinked owlishly.

Then he offered a small smirk, "Well, I'll see if I can find that scent inside of the building." with this, he hopped off of the bar-stool and began to make his way to the stairs Kurogiri had told him led to the upper floors of the building. Before he crossed through the threshold, he stopped himself by suddenly remembering manners that were not normal for Inuzuka. "Uh... is it okay, I mean? Like, to search?"

He heard a barely-audible chuckle from the direction of the bar, then Kurogiri let him know, "Of course. Just try not to bother too many of the tenants in your search."

With a quick nod, Kiba set off to find the lizard-person-partner.

Amongst all of the perfume and other human's scents, he could find faint traces of reptilian-like smells in the air. And the farther he became from the bar- the more stairs he climbed- he found that the scent was easier to find.

Kiba knew that he was being irresponsible by not setting off to find the rest of his team. But his nose _needed_ a break. And finding Kurogiri's partner for him seemed like only a small thing to do in gratitude for, y'know, saving him from a painful crash-landing.

Eventually, after he had arrived at the highest floor in the building, he found a door that _reeked_ of lizard. So Kiba knocked on it, completely sure that this was the room that held the business partner Kurogiri had asked him to find.

The person that opened the door had pale pink hair gelled to the back of his head and the face of a gecko.

Kiba blinked at him.

The man blinked back.

Then there was a soft cough behind the man and Kiba peeked over the gecko's shoulders to find Kurogiri standing behind him.

Kiba blinked once more.

"I am sorry for the smoke and mirrors, Kiba, but this was a test for you. You see, I am in need of someone adept at tracking." Kurogiri explained as he moved forward, all the while the gecko-man moved back from the doorframe. "I wished to see if your nose would be of any use to me."

"You could have just asked." Kiba stated with a shrug, "The putrid air outside is a big problem, y'know. But in sterile places like this, my sense of smell is almost at its peak."

It was _weird_ to be tested. But Kiba didn't find it _too weird_. His mom was insane, his clan was accustomed to not giving a crap about what normality was, and he had never yet met a single ninja without _some characteristic_ that other people found odd. In essence, normality was subjective to Kiba Inuzuka and he never actually questioned much.

The gecko-man scoffed softly now, then looked Kiba directly in the eyes. "What if we were able to get you some kind of purifier?"

Once again, Kiba blinked. "Purifier?" he parroted, absolutely taken aback by the word.

This world with pancakes, concrete, purifiers, and quirks was _strange_.

"A piece of technology that will help you filter the 'rankness' of the city's fumes." Kurogiri elaborated, then motioned to the lower of his face with his hand to help Kiba visualize such a contraption. "Supposedly, it allows people with tracking quirks like yours to manually decide what smells to focus on."

Kiba's eyes widened.

"That sounds like magic!"

What he wouldn't give for something like that right about now! If he truly could focus on specific scents with that, then finding his missing teammates would be an absolute dream!

Both men chuckled- and Kiba couldn't stop himself from feeling a sort of condescending feel to the sounds- then Kurogiri informed, "Well, it's technological magic. Given some time, we _might_ be able to get you one of those... in exchange for your aid in something that is absolutely important."

Kiba pressed his lips together at the information... but soon nodded. "You helped me out, Kurogiri. Least I can do is offer some help back."

Inuzuka knew their honor. They may be weird- but they were _loyal_.

Kurogiri hadn't needed to save him. Yet he had. Now he was even offering Kiba a device that would aid him in finding his friends. All Kiba had to do was repay his kindness.

It was a no-brainer.

~/~

Over the past few days, Kiba had been helping him out in the bar in exchange for food, water, and shelter. In the wait for the air-purifier the boy would need to track down his target, he had allowed Kiba to stay in one of the vacant rooms above the bar. Because of his stay with them, Kiba had slowly gotten to meet the members of the League of Villains- but he had not found out about their more criminal activities.

"You sure he'll be up for this?" Dabi questioned him once more.

Kurogiri sighed softly as he finished cleaning up the bar, growing tired of having to defend his plans from the rest of their organization.

"He found me without getting confused with any of the other rooms that my scent." Spinner offered with a shrug, taking his time drinking from the beer he had ordered.

Toga, off in her own world as always, was drawing caricatures of the tattooed tracker with collars around his neck and leashes strapped to them. To her, he was incredibly dog-like and adorable. She had been the only person Kurogiri had decided would not be allowed to talk with Kiba if there was no one else from the League of Villains with them. Kiba was trusting. But Toga was the most likely to let something slip and make him begin to doubt them.

"He was able to identify Spinner's scent from his scarf as soon as I brought it in- I was behind the bar, he was on the other side, and yet he was able to catch the scent. His ability is trustworthy."

Dabi frowned softly, but soon breathed out and shrugged his shoulders. "Well, either this'll be the beginning of the end for the pro-heroes, or we'll crash and burn spectacularly."

Seeing how these were the three youngest members of their organization, Kurogiri did not chide them too much on their insistence of worrying over the plan. Instead, the man left them finish their drinks and made his way down to the cellar, where Kiba had been mopping up.

The boy wasn't the best at cleaning up, but at least he didn't try to avoid work like the others did. Kurogiri guessed it was because he was aware of the fact that without them, he would be homeless and completely lost. At least with them, he had some direction.

"Oi, Kurogiri," Kiba called from the very back of the cellar, where he was wringing out the mop-head. "Where can I buy some steak? And is it okay if I cook some up for dinner?"

This was a rough young man. From the way he spoke to the way he stood, Kurogiri _knew_ this was someone with the same brat-like characteristics the rest of the young people he knew had. But there was a truly odd sense of understanding for hard-work and kindness that Dabi, Toga, and Spinner all lacked.

In a way, Kurogiri liked Kiba. As dumb and naïve as he was, he was at least pleasant to be around.

"I can take you to the market after you've finished up." he remarked softly as he crossed his arms over his chest, "I need to stock up on glasses once more."

Kiba snickered at that, "Ever thought of giving them plastic?"

Immediately, Kurogiri knew Kiba was referencing the more clumsy members of their organization- who he had seen shatter glass at least twice in the small amount of time he had been staying with them.

"Of course I have. They threatened to strike."

Now Kiba barked out a harsh laugh and shook his head, "Man, you guys are so weird. I think my friends'd like ya."

Kurogiri nodded and turned back around, set on informing the rest that he would be heading out for a moment with Kiba. But as he walked, he couldn't help but think about the sadness that had painted Kiba's final words.

… Oh well, if he played his cards right, he would survive long enough to meet back with those idiotic teammates of his. If he didn't... well, hopefully he would have led the League to their target before he perished.

* * *

When Recovery Girl had finished checking her up, she told Yagi Toshinori that Hinata was cleared for transportation.

Immediately, Hinata was put on edge. Tenten had said that they would be escaping while they moved from the infirmary to wherever it was that they wanted to take them to have some kind of conversation. But Hinata didn't want to hurt either the kind old lady that had just given her a delicious lollipop or the skinny man that honestly seemed worried about them.

She also didn't want to risk the ire of the people that had taken care of her concussion. What if they hurt the two Tenten had targeted and then they were hunted down like criminals? Wouldn't it be easier to find their teammates if they weren't running away from people chasing them?

"I'll inform Principal Nezu, then." the blonde man informed Recovery Girl, then offered them a tired yet kind smile. "Don't worry, kids. Everything'll be fine. We just need to iron out some details to make sure everything's okay."

Recovery Girl assured them of this as well, then told them she would be stepping out after a small device on her belt beeped loudly.

Once the three of them were left alone once more, it was Naruto to break their silence.

"Tenten,"

"Naruto, I already gave my orders."

The blonde teenager huffed and Hinata closed her eyes.

She was feeling sick once more.

"I'm not hurting Skeletor. And I'm not hurting Recovery Girl either."

"You wouldn't be hurting them, you do-"

"We're not escaping." Naruto interrupted her, then turned to look at her through narrowed eyes. "We're not held captive."

"Dammit, Naruto!" Tenten jumped up from the bed and glowered at him, "This isn't some game! Because of you, we're _a world away_ from our home! We have to find our teammates as quickly as possible so we can leave."

Hinata blinked as she looked over at the blonde, only to find him pursing his lips in thought.

(He looked adorable like that. But Hinata was too anxious to truly note this.)

"I've been thinking about that, Tenten... how would making enemies help us find our teammates? Worse yet, what if after we knock Skeletor and Recovery Girl out, we're arrested or something?" Naruto crossed his arms over his chest, closing his eyes as he continued to speak. "These people have done nothing to hurt us! And _we're_ the invaders here- not them."

Tenten growled and quickly turned away from Naruto.

Hinata softly murmured, "N-Naruto h-h-has a p-point..."

"Of course you think that." the older teen grunted, then sighed heavily. "We don't know these people, Naruto. This could all be a ruse to trick us."

"It could be. But what if it isn't?" He countered, "Tenten, you've gotta think logically about this. These are our allies right now. They're powerful to _some_ degree. We can't make them our enemies."

Naruto was completely right. Besides, Hinata honestly believed that this was no act. From what little she had seen from the adults around them, they truly were kind and worried about their well-being.

"M-Maybe..." she thought aloud, "Maybe th-they could h-h-help u-u-us."

A heavy silence fell over them after she said that.

Tenten kept her back turned to them- Hinata was able to see how tightly coiled her shoulders were. But soon, after a few seconds of heavy thought, Tenten breathed out heavily and allowed her shoulders to slump.

"I'm... I'm scared, you guys." She whispered, "Neji's the thinker. I just follow my orders. I've never been team leader."

"Hinata and I aren't thinkers either, Tenten." Naruto stepped forward, now holding one hand in a tight fist. "But if we put our non-team-leader heads together, I'm sure we'll come up with a good plan!"

"Y-yeah!"

Tenten chuckled humorlessly, then shook her head. "Fine. We'll follow these people. But at the first sign of trouble, all trust flies out the window. Got it?"

"Got it!"

"Yeah."

Hinata felt that they ran no risk trusting these people. But it was good that Tenten was around- she may have been rash, but she certainly helped them remember that they _needed_ to find their teammates.

* * *

"That's... _Wow_."

Todoroki was normally a lot more eloquent with his thoughts. But after all of the information Nara had told him had begun to truly sink into him, the teenager couldn't help but feel somewhat overwhelmed.

"I know. It's a lot." The dark haired teen breathed out, eyes closed as he nodded to himself. "But I thought it'd be for the best to come clean and explain everything to you. An ally isn't too bad to have when you're stuck in a world with volatile control of your main source of defense."

_Chakra_, not a quirk.

Nara wasn't just a shadow-controller. He was a master-strategist with passable hand-to-hand combat skills and intimate knowledge of various fighting styles that utilized long-to-mid-range weaponry. Along with his other missing teammates, he was a highly trained ninja. And from a young age, he had been trained to fight and, if needed, even kill.

"So there's no chakra in this world?"

It was odd to say such a word in such a tangible way. Of course Todoroki knew about possible meta-physical and religious theories on chakra. But these were intangible and, for most, just old-world religious thoughts. But the other boy wasn't talking about chakra in the way that Todoroki had once known it. He was talking about it as if it were the _driving force_ behind his world's very foundations.

"None at all. I can't explain it..." Nara now crossed his arms over his chest and cocked his head to the side slightly, keeping his eyes closed. "But it's like I'm numb to the outside. Chakra in the world is like a steady hum you always ignore, even though you're aware of it. But right now, there is no hum. The only way to explain that is to say that there is no chakra here other than what is naturally within me."

Todoroki pursed his lips, "You use chakra to fight." Nara nodded. "Your chakra _drains_ as you use it." once more, the other boy nodded. "Doesn't that meant that once you use your chakra up here, it's gone?"

Now his eyebrows drew in, scrunching his forehead up. "That's what makes sense! But, no. After resting, my chakra is right back to what I came here with... I... I'm completely lost here, Todoroki." his eyes opened after this, dark eyes troubled. "For the first time in a very long time, I don't know enough to know what to do. And I don't have the skills to even begin sorting everything out."

He frowned at that.

"You're smart. Don't put yourself down like that."

With a small huff, Nara thanked him. Then they fell into a thick silence.

"To return to your home... the first step would be to find your teammates, yes?"

Nara clearly felt out his depth because _he was_. And while Todoroki was just as lacking in knowledge about world-traveling issues, he could at least help with the brainstorming he had to do.

"Ideally."

With a soft hum, Todoroki offered, "Why don't you tell me what they look like? That way I can at least keep an eye out- see if I can find them by some miracle."

Nara contemplated the idea, then shrugged. "Well, something's better than nothing. Yeah, we can start with that."

~/~

Todoroki asked him if the dog he knew as Akamaru had white fur with some brown spots and was unnaturally large. Shikamaru was immediately caught off guard by the question, but soon nodded at the description.

"I think one of my classmates has adopted him."

"What?"

Then Todoroki explained to him what had happened only a few minutes beforehand- how a boy named Shouji had presented him to a large dog he wished for the class to keep secret.

Only yesterday, Shikamaru had explained everything to him. And already his decision was proving to be useful.

"I can bring him here. I can convince Shouji to bring him over so you can see if you recognize him."

Hearing this classmate's name made Shikamaru's heart tug slightly. Already more than a week had passed since Naruto had forced them into this strange situation- he was starting to miss his home.

But still Shikamaru agreed to the possibility.

While Todoroki was gone, Shikamaru cleaned up the room. Over his time here, he had accumulated quite a large amount of notes and different papers about possible theories on the lack of chakra and the development of the world. Along with the books, he stacked it all up neatly to make sure that the classmate called Shouji didn't see more than he was prepared to tell.

It took a few minutes, but soon enough Todoroki was knocking on the door to let him know that he had arrived. And when the door opened, it was only a matter of few seconds before a furry blur crashed into him and forced him to topple onto the bed behind him.

"

* * *

She didn't like this. They were inside of a much-too-small room with no visible windows with too many people she did not know.

They were all sat at a table, facing a man clad in a light brown trench coat she had never seen before, Principal Nezu, and a dark haired man with a crescent shaped scar beneath his right eye.

Yagi Toshinori was outside. He had promised to wait for them, even though he had not told them exactly what it was that they were going to be doing within the room. Nor had he explained why there were so many different people standing at the back of the room, unmoving and unspeaking.

There was a woman with long dark hair, a skin tight suit, and a dark mask on her face that did little to hide her identity. Beside her, there was a complete oddity to Tenten- a man that seemed to have purple skin, absolutely no lips, and yellow details around his face. He too was clad in a light brown trench coat- although his body was masked by it, unlike the other man who wore it as a simple garment. And the final man had white hair, a slight underbite, and a skin-tight red suit with one thick tube running from one glove all the way to his back.

Tenten was no idiot, those three were here to run damage-control in case anything happened.

She didn't like this.

Why had she listened to Naruto and Hinata? For all they knew, this could have been an ambush! These people might kill them after they finish getting what they want!

"Names?"

The man with the trench coat asked after having cleared his throat.

There was a microphone set up in the middle of the table- they were being recorded.

She didn't like this _at all_.

"Uzumaki Naruto."

Hinata stumbled on her own name, face red. Tenten knew it was because she was seated between her and Naruto- most would just take it as pure nervousness, though.

And Tenten frowned before spitting out her own.

The trench coat wearer frowned at her, "No surname?"

That question always hit her hard. But she always played it cool, "None at all."

He cocked an eyebrow at that, but scratched down something on the notepad before him before offering his own name. "My name is Detective Tsukauchi- these are Principal Nezu and Aizawa Shouta. Are you aware as to why it is that you have been brought down here?"

Tenten stayed quiet because, no, she did not. But Naruto asked, "Cause we kind of crash-landed inside of a pretty elite place?"

"Precisely." The white mouse nodded, its voice mildly squeaky. "You all somehow managed to bypass all of our defense systems without setting off a single alarm. We wish to know how that happened so we can ensure such an even isn't able of repeating itself."

Tenten sat up now, face pinched in with suspicion. "Just _what is_ here? No one's explained _anything_."

The man with the long black hair shifted in his chair, coughed slightly, and simply stated, "You're trespassers."

Her frown deepened at the simple yet substanceless answer.

Naruto sat up and cleared his throat, directing attention toward himself. "It _would_ be pretty nice to know where it is that we are. We're not any danger to you guys. And we just want to go back home. But first we've gotta find some people we're missing."

That was too much information for Tenten's liking.

But soon the small mouse offered, "Shall we come to a consensus, then? You tell us what we wish to know, we tell you where you are. It's only fair to trade such information, correct?"

That was... _fairer_.

But Tenten still didn't know how far they could trust these people.

She was no idiot. From the fact that there were three strong looking people standing in the back- who had not yet said anything-, she could see that they didn't one-hundred percent trust them either.

* * *

Tenten was so tense that even Naruto had to acknowledge that maybe, within her mind, they had committed a huge mistake.

But he wasn't about to back down. These people had been nothing but kind to them. Recovery Girl was an older woman and Skeletor was undoubtedly vulnerable- it wasn't _right_ to attack them just because Tenten was _worried_.

Come what may, they would figure everything out.

Besides, these adults were clearly level-headed enough to listen to them without threatening immediately bodily harm.

From what they gathered from what Principal Nezu, Naruto could one hundred percent understand why they were so worried. This was a highly important school that was supposed to have only the best defense system in their world- their appearance here was _worrying_.

Like they had promised, after that had been explained, Tenten let them know what they had been doing before they ended up accidentally transporting here.

"There are others?" Detective Tsukauchi asked, just about interrupting her. "How many? Do you know where they are?"

Naruto took over then. "We're missing Kiba, Shika, and Akamaru. Two guys and a dog."

"A _dog_?"

"Yup. He's-"

"Naruto. It's their turn to answer one of our questions." Tenten interrupted, and then asked, "Have you gotten news of a teenage kid with fang-shaped red tattoos on his cheeks? He's got the most easily identifiable appearance."

There was a pause from the adults, then the detective nodded. "Actually, yes, we did. There was a break-in at the house of the mother of one of U.A.'s students. Nothing was stolen and when the police arrived, she was found with a pillow underneath her head. It was put down as a robbery gone wrong." Now he shifted in his chair to turn to face the principal.

The principal of a hero academy was a mouse.

That was still so cute!

Naruto had to stop himself from grabbing at the mouse to hug him once more.

"Midoriya Inko described the intruder with tan skin, short brown hair, and red tattoos on his cheeks. He wore dark clothes and spoke roughly."

Huh... _that_ sounded like Kiba. "Anything else?"

"She heard him ask for someone named Akamaru."

"That's Kiba!"

This was great news!

Naruto jumped up with a broad smile, "Okay, take us to the cell where Dog Breath's now! He'll totally be able to lead us to the rest of our teammates."

"Sit down." The guy with the Sasuke-like mood huffed, "We can't take you where he is because he got away before the police could catch him. He's on the loose."

Well... huh.

Naruto sat back down and breathed out heavily.

Back to square one.

* * *

Shouji couldn't think of a proper name for the dog.

"Indiana Bones is a great name!"

Kirishima had found out about the animal because at the very moment in time that Uraraka had been leaving his room, the red head had been walking down the hallway. So the animal had jumped out before either Shouji or Uraraka had been able to stop him. And Kirishima had wound up splayed out on the ground with a large white dog resting on top of him.

Uraraka and he had quickly herded them back into his room, worried about possibly getting caught before they had managed to complete their mission.

Right now Kirishima was rolling along the floor with the dog, laughing giddily as the dog jumped over him and licked at him in pure joy.

Seriously, Shouji honestly couldn't stop himself from wondering if the dog _knew_ that he needed to convince his classmates to help them. But with the way that he had suddenly become so much more physically affectionate... well, Shouji couldn't help but _wonder_.

"That is so not a good name for this guy. He's not cheesy at all!" Uraraka chided the red head, then looked over at Shouji. "What characteristics have you seen from him?"

It was very unusual to have so many people within his room. Kirishima and Uraraka were not close friends of his- so it was truly _weird_. But at least Kirishima was on board with convincing Bakugou to help them keep the dog a secret.

"Smart." Shouji eventually muttered out, even though he didn't explain himself.

He couldn't tell them that he hypothesized that the large dog was capable of opening doors. That was just crazy.

"How about Satoshi, then?" Uraraka asked, "That means smart."

"Chew Barka!"

They both ignored Kirishima.

Shouji nodded softly, then smiled with a mouth he morphed from his right arm. "Yeah, that sounds great."

Step two, completed. Onto step three.

~/~

He had _known_ that was Shikamaru! He had just known it!

Akamaru's tail wagged uncontrollably because of two simple facts: first of all, his nose was not damaged and he _had_ smelled delicious deer meat all those days ago. And, two, he was finally around someone that knew him!

All of those teenagers Six-Arms had introduced him to were insane and all treated him like a _dog_. But Shikamaru knew him! And Shikamaru understood that he was capable of understanding higher forms of speaking than just baby-speak.

Bubbles- as he had taken to call the brown haired bubbly girl that had helped Six Arms name him- had explained her plan a day after he had been dubbed Satoshi. The specific people she wanted them to meet were all the respective class 'leaders' whose opinions swayed the rest of their classmates. By getting them onto their side, they'd be more likely to get the class to help keep him a secret.

First they had met Pink-Skin; who Akamaru had immediately decided to stay far away from after she had tried to put bows in his hair. He may have tolerated a lot, but even _he_ had his breaking point.

Then Monkey Boy had patted his head and agreed to help keep him a secret. Akamaru had liked him- he was the least insane of the people he met.

Akatsuki was explosive and volatile and had luckily _not_ pet him. If he had, his fur would have wound up matted and it would have been awful to try and lick that nitroglycerine away.

But it was the final person Akamaru liked the most. Because he had been the one to reunite him with Shikamaru.

"I missed you too, Akamaru."

He should not have smothered Shikamaru with so much love- the Nara weren't really all that fond of fur or slobber. But he was so happy to be reunited with one of his teammates that he couldn't stop himself from showering him in all the affection he could offer.

"Akamaru?" Six-Arms asked, "But his fur's white..."

"Long explanation." Shikamaru muttered, finally pushing Akamaru's face away from his so he could take a look at the human he had been with this whole time. "How'd you find him?"

Akamaru settled himself over Shikamaru's lap, even though he allowed space for him to sit up. And he made himself comfortable for what the humans around him would discuss.

Unfortunately, even though he had been reunited with one of his humans, he hadn't been reunited with _his_ partner. And because of this, he was as good as mute still.

~..~..~

Please review and tell me what y'all thought!


	6. Chapter 6

Starting from this chapter, everyone's parts will all be on the same day. So there's no need to worry about having to go back and forth with the time stamps of each character's part.

..~..~..

It took a few days. But eventually, Kurogiri came to him with an odd looking, metal and rubber encased mask that was supposed to cover up the lower half of his face- its highest point being at the bridge of his nose.

Afterwards, it took Kiba a good three days to even begin to understand the piece of technology that required more than just the use of his chakra to control. It had dials along both sides, allowing him to control the amount of... pollution? He didn't really understand how it worked. He just knew that by turning the dials, he was able to smell more and less of the environment around him.

There was also a kind of control, small, barely taking up the size of his palm. It was supposedly the contraption that controlled the overall amount of air the mask would take in and how much oxygen it would filter.

Kurogiri had explained the mechanics and the basics. Kiba had understood this much. But he couldn't wrap his head around the idea of gaining so much benefit without even a minimal amount of chakra invested. Just like he couldn't understand how such an advanced piece of technology had been created in the space of less than two weeks... although, it _did_ make sense if this was a product that had already been in the market before he had arrived- but that was somewhat unbelievable, considering how few people he knew in _his_ world that paid any attention to their sense of smell.

Honestly, there was a lot about this world he didn't understand. But he didn't bother to think too much on the things he didn't actually understand. He wasn't going to be living here for the rest of his life, after all. All he needed to do was help Kurogiri out, track his friends down, (throttle Naruto,) and return to his own home. It was as easy as sharpening a kunai.

At the moment, he was fiddling with some of the dials on the left side of his face as he sat waiting at the bar for Kurogiri to finish cleaning up. They were going to head out into the (rank) city to test out the purifying device on his face and make sure that Kiba would be able to utilize it for his mission.

As he fiddled, he asked the man stupid questions he knew wouldn't really matter much in the long run.

"Favorite color?"

With a hum and the clinking of glass being set down, Kurogiri answered with a decisive, "Purple."

Oh, that was rich. And kind of amusing.

With a small smile- which was covered up by the purifying device in a way Kiba didn't know how to feel about- the boy nodded to himself. "Purple's a good color. But red's powerful."

"Something tells me we both have a bias towards our favored color, Kiba." Kurogiri remarked in a slight huff, before groaning. There was a muffled crash above them, clearly having come from the upper floors. "This is a madhouse precariously kept afloat by my ever thinning sanity."

Kiba outright chuckled at the comment.

"Yup. You're all insane; it's kind of comforting, y'know." finally, he stopped messing with the dials to the left of his face and turned to look directly at Kurogiri.

The man was standing behind the bar with a damp towel within his right hand. His left was currently grabbing the last glass he had washed, probably to dry it like he had with the rest. From what Kiba could see, that was the last glass he needed to take care of.

"Are you ready for the trial run?"

He didn't one hundred percent understand any of the mechanics- but he was smart enough to understand at least the process required to make this contraption work. So, even though he didn't feel comfortable at all, he knew there wasn't much point of delaying any further. What he knew he knew, what he hadn't understood he probably never would.

"Sure am!"

~/~

The first thing Kiba did when he stepped outside of the building was inhale deeply. The second thing he did was let out a loud whoop that immediately caught the attention of the scarce amount of people that were walking around in the lazy afternoon. And the third thing he did was turn to Kurogiri and shout at him that he was a genius.

This was a child. And his honesty and passion were incredibly novel to Kurogiri. It had been a while since he had been around anyone as naïve as him.

"I can smell that guy! He smells like sunshine, fertilizer, and dew!" he gasped as he pointed at a green skinned man that seemed to have leaves sprouting from his head. "And that lady smells like water and pure oxygen- bubbles! Kurogiri, she smells like bubbles!"

By the time he pointed at an incredibly muscular being with incredibly long hair and a rather harsh frown on their face, Kurogiri asked the teenager if he could stop pointing at people and shouting out their scents. So he did stop shouting it... even though he _did_ murmur about the contrast between the person's appearance and their scent.

On they continued, Kiba dabbling with the ventilator so he could focus on specific scents and Kurogiri accompanying quietly beside him. Eventually they reached the marketplace; the one Kurogiri always enjoyed visiting to stock up on supplies; and Kiba stopped him.

"Alright. I think I've got the hang of this thing. Got any test for me?"

He did. A rather simple one, really.

"Of course." he nodded softly. "Have you managed to catch my own scent?"

It was odd to not be able to see Kiba's mouth. Kurogiri had not noticed this before, but most of his expressions were shown with his mouth. His smiles were large and his frowns more than incredibly apparent. Having his mouth covered now truly hindered him from seeing the boy's complete emotions. Although, from the blinking of his eyes, he could tell the boy was curious... yet again.

"It's a really _unique_ smell, Kurogiri. It's like cold air." his eyebrows scrunched up at this, and Kurogiri was perplexed by the odd explanation. "It's like... well, you've got perfume on, so I smell that too. But it's like I feel the cold in my lungs when I catch your perfume."

"Intriguing." Kurogiri nodded after a moment, then chuckled. "I assume my quirk has had such a drastic effect on my scent."

"Without a doubt!" Kiba agreed and crossed his arms over his chest, "Do I gotta hunt you down?"

Ah, well that was rather perceptive.

Without another word to his companion, Kurogiri dematerialized. Now he would just have to wait and see if Kiba Inuzuka could successfully track him through throngs of people and a litany of confusing scents.

* * *

Kiba, remarkably, had somehow managed to get in trouble with the police the very _second_ he had arrived in this new reality. To Hinata, this was both regrettable and amusing... It was such a _Kiba_ thing to do... honestly, it was something incredibly laughable. Especially because it was all just a rather large misunderstanding on the police's part. Kiba wasn't some criminal.

"He wasn't there to steal anything." Tenten informed the men with nothing short of complete confidence. "Forget the police report- Kiba crash landed in that woman's apartment against his will. He isn't some delinquent."

"Care to explain the facial tattoos?"

Hinata... didn't like the way that question was asked. It sounded... _accusing_. As if tattoos were immediate admissions of criminality. And considering their own world's history with tattoos, Hinata didn't find it farfetched that people in this world might think in a similar manner.

With a heat stirring within her chest- possibly, it could be that she loved her teammate with all of her heart and refused to allow anyone to see less than the best in him- Hinata opened her mouth to answer the question.

"They're cl-clan tattoos. His f-family, the Inuzuka," she gulped, suddenly painfully aware of the fact that all eyes within the room were now turned on _her_. She didn't like attention. But she pushed on. _For Kiba_. "It's tra-tradition."

The man called Tsukauchi looked at her through narrowed eyes that clearly said 'I don't believe you'. And Hinata was, admittedly, bothered by that. And... it _emboldened_ her.

"An Inuzuka's fangs signify both their prowess in combat as well as their strong shinobi heritage." she crossed her arms over her chest as her own eyes narrowed, words becoming strong as she lost her stutter for just a moment. "Their tattoos mean a lot more than just facial decorations. Their tattoos belong to a long line of breathtaking warriors and everyone with a tattoo like that is _pack_."

And there were so many more things Hinata could say about Kiba and his tattoos and the Inuzuka's pack mentality. But Tenten poked her side and absolutely surprised her, causing her eyes to widen as she jumped slightly within her chair. The burst of indignation that had spurned her to speak in defense of her friend left her almost immediately.

"Well," the detective breathed out after a few moments of contemplation, "Tattoos in Japan aren't really socially acceptable forms of art- it's a sort of unspoken agreement. Even though much of our criminal tradition has petered out, there are still instances in which tattoos aid in interpreting a criminal's history. And facial tattoos are so uncommon that they're usually left to..."

The man with the long dark hair now breathed out, calling attention to himself. "Face tattoos are usually left to the hardened criminals prepared to do whatever it takes to find their own amusement. While they're not evidence to criminality, there _is_ a clear pattern to tattoos in offenders rather than in the law-abiding populace."

Hinata was not taken aback by hearing this. Within their own world, there was also a history of a strong relationship between tattoos and criminality. But with the leveling of relations between Villages and a social evolution that encompassed the whole world, people were slowly coming to see that tattoos meant more than just imprisonment and crime. Specifically, Konohagakure was one of the main Villages for promoting such a change. The Second and Third Hokage, after all, had sported facial tattoos- as small and faint as they may have been.

But she _was_ bothered by the insinuation of her pack member's guilt- as if he didn't believe that Kiba wasn't some kind of delinquent.

Granted, in a way, Kiba _was_ a delinquent. The Inuzuka Clan had never particularly fit into the mold of other Clans within Konoha. But, in a similar fashion, _no Clan_ ever fit that mold. Every single Clan was different in their own unique way. Few cared to admit this fact, but Hinata wasn't blind to it. With Shino and Kiba as her teammates, she was rather aware of many intricacies of different clans. And while the Inuzuka were the roughest around the edges, her own Clan wasn't exempt from being _different_.

A surge of indignation took over her. And Hinata prepared herself to defend her teammate once again- but froze up when she felt a hand fall on her shoulder. When she turned to look at its owner, she found Naruto smiling softly at her, as if trying to calm her down. Her cheeks immediately began to burn and all fire of anger was replaced with _the gushing feeling that Naruto was touching her_.

"Trust us. While Dog Breath has his issues, he's no criminal." Naruto spoke up, "We need to find him and fast. He'll lead us to the rest of our teammates." after a moment's thought, he added, "Or Akamaru. He can lead us to the others- probably even better than Kiba, honestly. Whichever of those two works."

* * *

Akamaru was with him. That was good. That was... _great_, logically speaking. Akamaru and Kiba were the only members of their team that could sniff out others, after all. With Akamaru, he would be able to hunt down the rest of the teammates he needed to find before they could even think about a way to return to their home.

Apparently, Shouji- _six whole arms_\- and Akamaru had both experienced something similar to Shikamaru and Todoroki. The dog had been dumped, essentially, into the teenager's room in the middle of the night and left no evidence of where he had come from. The only difference to their story, essentially, was the night when Akamaru had appeared. It had not been the same night that Shikamaru had arrived.

Immediately, this led Shikamaru to believe that, even though they had been pulled away from their world at the same time, they had been dumped not only in different places, but also different time stamps. And that would mean that the displacement ratio they had been separated by had just widened considerably. Who knew if the rest of his teammates were even in the world _right now_?

And... well, he only had Akamaru to work off of. And Akamaru had landed rather close to him, relatively speaking; it was pure luck that they had arrived in the same building within this strange new world. So, if that data was indicative of a pattern, it meant that the rest of his friends would be arriving here any second now and they would appear close to this area.

Shikamaru could not help but sigh and close his eyes at this final thought.

With their kind of luck, odds were that his friends would land in the _United States_, if they had not still arrived by this time. Or, worse yet, they had already landed here and had begun to look for the rest of his teammates- because odds also were that everyone had been separated in the travel to this world. And by trying to find them, they had become so incredibly lost in this place that they would never be found again.

Inuzuka sense of smell was legendary- but it was not infallible, godlike, or perfect by any sense of the word. And it certainly could not find someone that was another continent away.

Akamaru might be able to track the rest of their team down, but he wasn't capable of hunting them down if they truly were half the world away. In Konoha, Akamaru could track someone from an incredible distance- all Inuzuka nin-ken could. But Shikamaru doubted that the dog would be able to track their friends now if they were more than a few kilometers away.

But... well, Akamaru was still their best bet.

"So... why the name?"

After almost half an hour spent explaining their origins and the nature of their world to the six armed teenager that had found Akamaru, the teen was still completely focused on Akamaru's name. He wasn't confused by the reality of chakra, nor was he surprised to find out about real life ninja or people without quirks. No. He was... wondering about Akamaru's name.

Shikamaru sighed, but smiled softly.

That kind of one-track mind was something he was honestly beginning to miss. He hadn't been around Naruto for too long and it was obvious now.

"There's something called soldier pills in my world. They enhance the person that consumes' them skills and power, essentially." Shikamaru shifted slightly on his knees, all the while Akamaru yawned, tail thumping lazily against the bed he was laying on. It was odd to see the dog draped over a human that wasn't Kiba, but Shikamaru guessed that this Shouji character was completely trustworthy if the dog was so at ease with him. "If Akamaru eats one of those, his fur turns red."

"Oh." Shouji blinked, his hand pausing momentarily as it pet the dog's fur. "That's... a very specific name, then."

The Inuzuka were an odd bunch. But the teen wouldn't know that.

Todoroki cleared his throat after they fell into silence, "Akamaru's a tracker, correct? That means that he'll be able to track your other teammates down."

Shikamaru nodded, even though he didn't voice out all the concerns he had that pertained to that specific plan. At this point, Akamaru was their _only_ bet at finding their teammates... _if they were anywhere near_.

"I'm guessing there's no one else in the dorm, right?" Shouji questioned and it was incredibly odd that he was speaking through a mouth that sprouted from his arm, rather than his actual mouth... did he even have a mouth on his face? Or was the lack of a mouth the reason why he wore the mask? "Sato- I mean, _Akamaru_, only scratched at your door, Todoroki. I think it's because he caught Nara's scent."

That was the only logical explanation. Shikamaru hung his head. "We'll have to begin searching outside of the dorm's grounds."

* * *

"Now that you guys have finished up with questioning one of our teammate's morals," Tenten cleared her throat after they had fallen into an uncomfortable silence. "Will you guys help us?"

The men didn't answer immediately. Honestly, this didn't surprise her, nor did it bother her too much. She could kind of maybe understand where they were coming from; even if she certainly didn't like all the caution and suspicion on their part.

"That artifact- the one that supposedly had you teleport here- where is it?" the small mouse creature finally asked after around a full minute of silence between them all. "Do none of you have it?"

Tenten shook her head. Even if she _did_ have it with her, honestly, she wouldn't tell them the truth. She wasn't stupid enough to give their only connection to their home away. But she didn't have it... it would only make sense for Naruto to have it. So... oh no.

"Nope!"

Her heart clenched in both disappointment and relief.

If Naruto had it with him, he would have answered so. And then that meant that the people around them would have access to the magical artifact that had transported them into this new world; that would be incredibly bad, especially if they decided to take it away from the blonde. Knowing this, it was obvious that Naruto didn't have the artifact with him. Which meant they truly were as stuck in their return home as they had been a few minutes ago.

No steps forward... but, well... at least no steps back either.

"N-no." Hinata's stutter had returned.

Well, at least it was real nice to find out that she cared enough about her teammate to show off that she truly did have a spine. She didn't use it often, but, at least she possessed one for things other than Naruto.

"Could you at least describe what it looked like?" the detective pried, "Maybe if we are aware of its appearance, we might be able to be on the look out for it."

And if they found it... then... well, maybe they would give it back. And that would be a step forward.

"If you find it, you've got to tell us." she glared at the detective directly in his eyes. He only smiled back and nodded, giving his word.

Tenten sighed and explained that it looked like any other sealing scroll. Its cover was red, the binding a thick black, and written in bold white on top of the black was the simple word '_magic_'. Honestly, if she had seen the scroll with her own eyes without knowing about its magical properties, she would have laughed at the absurdity of its incredibly mundane appearance.

After the detective had scratched down his notes, the man with the long dark hair coughed and grabbed everyone's attention. "You don't seem to have any ill intentions and while it is incredibly hard to believe, the fact that you bypassed all our security but were still caught does lend credibility to your unwillingness to land inside of U.A. property."

"While this is the first I hear of any visitors from a reality unlike our own, it is not too farfetched in a world as spectacular as ours." the mouse murmured in slight agreement, "You will be allowed to stay within U.A. for now and we will attempt to aid you in your return to your home."

"Thank you!" Naruto blurted out and the long haired man immediately groaned.

"_But_ ground rules _will_ be established. First and foremost, we cannot have you parading around campus as you are." now he closed his eyes and sighed, "Physically, you look like normal teenagers from this world. But those are clothes are odd."

"Indeed." the mouse nodded as he jumped down from his chair, "We will be giving you an appropriate change of clothes that will aid you in blending in... oh, and new identities as well. Just to not raise any suspicion around campus in the meantime."

"Wait a minute." Tenten called out, only to be ignored as the other men began to get up from their own seats.

New identities? New clothes? Blending around _campus_? What were these guys going on about?!

"Please follow me, now. I will explain what the faculty and board of U.A. have decided to do with you three as we go to the Development Studio."

* * *

"Ooh! Tenten! Hi, how are you?"

Naruto blinked at the disembodied voice that boomed from the ceiling of the large room they had just entered. Then he looked over at the kunoichi that had been called by name, only to find that Tenten was actually... well... _smiling_.

"Hatsume, right?" Tenten called out... and did she know she wasn't talking to anyone?

"I'm glad you remember me! Because I-" the voice was getting louder. Naruto was sure of that. "Remember you!" Oh. There was the person. Landing on the ground with steam flowing from her back. A completely normal sight.

"Hatsume Mei." Nezu called from behind Naruto's feet.

The blonde turned around to look down at him, only to find that the mouse was looking at the pink haired girl that had flown from seemingly the depths of darkness with disdain in his beady eyes.

He... looked so cute when he was trying to be serious.

_Control yourself, Naruto. Cute and cuddly doesn't mean you have to cuddle._

"Did Power Loader not tell you this area was to be cleared of all students?"

"Of course, Principal Nezu. But I was working on some last minute modifications to the sensors Tenten here absolutely demolished and I had honestly predicted the touch up would take up much less time than it did." the pink haired girl's smile was large, but it was unapologetic.

Naruto knew that smile. He had worn it many times.

This Hatsume Mei seemed like someone that would be easy to get along with.

Without really waiting for her principal to say anything else, Hatsume began to ask Tenten a whole slew of questions about possibly running some more tests on her, just to be able to truly gauge the extent of her skills. And Tenten seemed to follow her rapid fire speech with little to no issues, seeing how she was able to answer quickly every time Hatsume ended a question and paused to give the kunoichi a chance to answer.

As this happened, he looked over at Hinata and found her with her bottom lip worried between her teeth. Her eyes were glaring down at the floor. So slowly he shuffled towards her, then leaned over to ask her if she was alright.

In an instant, Hinata's face was alarmingly red and she had stopped biting at her lip; now her lips barely made any kind of expression.

Behind him, he heard Nezu sigh softly. "Well, I guess it cannot be helped. And Hatsume _is_ one of our most promising support students."

"Are you sure about having her help, Principal Nezu?" The really tall, lanky guy with a glare to match Sasuke's normal expression questioned. "This matter is incredibly sensitive, after all."

"Yes. It is. But she has been exposed to this issue and seems rather eager to interact with Tenten. And her skills are exemplary." Nezu now shrugged, "Maybe offering extra credit on the grounds of keeping quiet about this occurrence will be enough to keep her from telling anyone about this."

_This_... Right.

Wasn't it weird that kids were made to spend so much time in school for something as easy as physical work? 'Cause, really, that's all there seemed to be in the work of a hero- well, at least that's what Naruto had understood from Nezu's speech as they walked over here. And ninja didn't need to be cooped up in an Academy for so many years to learn their craft! A hands on approach was much more productive in his eyes.

It had been years since he had to attend an actual school. It might actually be pretty interesting to go back for now; just until they were able to figure out how to go back home.

* * *

Never before in his life had Akamaru cursed his amazing sense of smell as much as he was cursing it right now.

"He's sneezing an awful lot. Is that normal?" Six-Arms sounded awfully concerned and that made Akamaru feel a bit better.

Going out into the city with Todoroki, Shikamaru, and Shouji proved that searching for Kiba and the rest of their human teammates would be no easy feat.

Admittedly, Akamaru had _underestimated_ just how badly the pollution of this place truly was. He had been happy to believe that the mild pollution within the dorms was the norm for this place- not the exception. And he had been heavily disappointed to find out that he had been sorely mistaken in believing in such a pipe dream.

His nose was absolutely burning right now and his chest was beginning to hurt. It was as if his lungs were actually trying to punish him for having decided to wander out into this putrid air.

"No. Not really." he couldn't even smell Shikamaru's delicious deer-tinged scent. _That's_ how bad the smells around him were.

Before they had hit the city, Akamaru had been able to make out the smells of his companions and some other humans. He was a tracking expert, after all, and he had been trained from a young age to ignore pollutants in the air and focus on specific scents. He had thought he would be capable of doing such a thing when they had left the dorms... but he had seriously underestimated the filth of humans.

Now they were in a market that had so many horrible, delicious, and interesting smells that any unique scent he may have been able to pick up was completely muddled and confused. The pollution was too strong.

Did he dare say it?

His nose was... it was _useless_.

Once more he sneezed, feeling his nose becoming congested as it begged him for refuge from the horrible scents. He keened now, trying to paw at it and clear up some of dirty smells; it felt as if they had actually managed to grab onto him and were clear in every single inhale he made.

"Is his nose sensitive?" Six Arms now knelt beside him, and the hands that were now trying to steady him were warm and somewhat comforting. "It looks like he's in pain."

Once again he sneezed.

He _hated_ this.

Akamaru growled and barked sharply, only to sneeze once again.

He heard the human that smelt equally of ashes and rain murmur, "Maybe we should return to the dorms. Maybe the smells in here are overwhelming."

What sucked the most was that there was a familiar scent permeating his senses; a scent more familiar than Shikamaru's own; but he couldn't make it from what direction it was coming or even _to who it belonged_ because he just couldn't focus!

"Maybe we should." Shikamaru groaned softly, "C'mon, Akamaru. We're not going to torture you anymore. We'll find another way to track our teammates."

He growled and sneezed, but soon began to follow after the teenagers.

He hated this.

And he missed his partner.

Stupid human pollution.

~..~..~

Please review and tell me what you thought!


End file.
